The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
The Genocide Convention was the first human rights treaty adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, on 9 December 1948, and signified the international community’s commitment to “never again” after the atrocities committed during the Second World War. Its adoption marked a crucial step towards the development of international human rights and international criminal law as we know it today.
Delegates from countries that signed the UN Genocide Convention (US Holocaust Memorial Museum)
Article II of the Convention states that genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
