The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), or the Genocide Convention, is an

international treaty A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by international law. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, conventio ...

that criminalizes

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

and obligates state parties to pursue the enforcement of its prohibition. It was the first legal instrument to codify genocide as a crime and the first human rights treaty unanimously adopted by the

United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; , AGNU or AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its Seventy-ninth session of th ...

on 9 December 1948, during the

third session of the United Nations General Assembly The third regular session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, was held from 21 September to 12 December 1948 in Paris, France and from 5 April to 18 May 1949 in New York City, United States. The permanent Headquarters of the United Nati ...

. The Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951 and has 153 state parties . The Genocide Convention was conceived largely in response to

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, which saw atrocities such as the

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

that lacked an adequate description or legal definition. Polish-Jewish lawyer

Raphael Lemkin Raphael Lemkin (; 24 June 1900 – 28 August 1959) was a Polish lawyer who is known for coining the term "genocide" and for campaigning to establish the Genocide Convention, which legally defines the act. Following the German invasion of Poland ...

, who had coined the term genocide in 1944 to describe Nazi policies in occupied Europe and the

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily t ...

, campaigned for its recognition as a crime under

international law International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of Rule of law, rules, norms, Customary law, legal customs and standards that State (polity), states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generall ...

. Lemkin also linked

colonialism Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an Imperialism, imperialist project, colonialism c ...

with genocide, mentioning colonial genocides outside of Europe in his writings. In a 1946 resolution, the General Assembly recognized genocide as an international crime and called for the creation of a binding treaty to prevent and punish its perpetration. Subsequent discussions and negotiations among

UN member states The United Nations comprise sovereign states and the world's largest intergovernmental organization. All members have equal representation in the UN General Assembly. The Charter of the United Nations defines the rules for admission of ...

resulted in the CPPCG. The Convention defines genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group." These five acts include killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly. The convention further criminalizes "complicity, attempt, or

incitement In criminal law, incitement is the encouragement of another person to commit a crime. Depending on the jurisdiction, some or all types of incitement may be illegal. Where illegal, it is known as an inchoate offense, where harm is intended but ma ...

of its commission." Member states are prohibited from engaging in genocide and are obligated to pursue the enforcement of this prohibition. All perpetrators are to be tried regardless of whether they are private individuals, public officials, or political leaders with

sovereign immunity Sovereign immunity, or crown immunity, is a legal doctrine whereby a monarch, sovereign or State (polity), state cannot commit a legal wrong and is immune from lawsuit, civil suit or criminal law, criminal prosecution, strictly speaking in mode ...

. The CPPCG has influenced law at both the national and international level. Its definition of genocide has been adopted by international and hybrid tribunals, such as the

International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an intergovernmental organization and International court, international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute ...

, and incorporated into the domestic law of several countries. Its provisions are widely considered to be reflective of

customary law A legal custom is the established pattern of behavior within a particular social setting. A claim can be carried out in defense of "what has always been done and accepted by law". Customary law (also, consuetudinary or unofficial law) exists wher ...

and therefore binding on all nations whether or not they are parties. The

International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...

(ICJ) has likewise ruled that the principles underlying the Convention represent a

peremptory norm A peremptory norm (also called ) is a fundamental principle of international law that is accepted by the international community of states as a norm from which no derogation is permitted. There is no universal agreement regarding precisely w ...

against genocide that no government can derogate. The Genocide Convention authorizes the mandatory jurisdiction of the ICJ to adjudicate disputes, leading to international litigation such as the

Rohingya genocide case The ''Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar)'', commonly referred to as the Rohingya genocide case, is a case which is currently being heard by the International Court of ...

and the litigation over the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Definition of genocide

Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as: Article 3 defines the crimes that can be punished under the convention: The convention was passed to outlaw actions similar to the

and

the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

. The first draft of the Convention included political killing. The Convention initially voted to pass the inclusion of political groups into its definition of genocide, but the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

along with some other nations would not accept that actions against groups identified as holding similar political opinions or social status would constitute genocide. Member states including Iran, Uruguay, and Egypt motioned to reopen the discussion in the convention. These groups reasoned that actions regarding political genocide did not meet criteria of genocide based on five arguments: : (a) Political groups are voluntary and therefore not homogenous : (b) It would discourage member states from participating in the Convention due to fear of external interference within member states : (c) Causes difficulties for member states to enact preventative measures against subversive groups : (d) The question of excluding political groups would lead to debates on other groups, including economic and professional groups : (e) The Declaration of Human Rights and national governments should protect and enforce the rights of all citizens, so protections from human rights violations should be encompassed within these jurisdictions instead of the UN’s definition of genocide. Based on these arguments, these stipulations were subsequently removed in a political and diplomatic compromise. However, debate within scholarly realms and activism have noted severe flaws that have resulted from the Convention’s intentional exclusion of political groups as victim groups. Early drafts also included acts of cultural destruction in the concept of genocide, but these were opposed by former European colonial powers and some settler countries. Such acts, which Lemkin saw as part and parcel of the concept of genocide, have since often been discussed as

cultural genocide Cultural genocide or culturicide is a concept first described by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, in the same book that coined the term ''genocide''. The destruction of culture was a central component in Lemkin's formulation of genocide ...

(a term also not enshrined in international law). In June 2021, the International Criminal Court issued new guidelines for how cultural destruction, when occurring alongside other recognized acts of genocide, can potentially be corroborating evidence for the intent of the crime of genocide. The Genocide Convention establishes five prohibited acts that, when committed with the requisite intent, amount to genocide. Genocide is not just defined as wide-scale massacre-style killings that are visible and well-documented. International law recognizes a broad range of forms of violence in which the crime of genocide can be enacted.

Killing members of the group ''Article II(a)''

While mass killing is not necessary for genocide to have been committed, it has been present in almost all recognized genocides. In certain instances, men and adolescent boys are singled out for murder in the early stages, such as in the genocide of the Yazidis by Daesh, the Ottoman Turks' attack on the Armenians, and the Burmese security forces' attacks on the Rohingya. Men and boys are typically subject to "fast" killings, such as by gunshot. Women and girls are more likely to die slower deaths by slashing, burning, or as a result of sexual violence. The jurisprudence of the

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR; ; ) was an international court, international ''ad-hoc'' court established in November 1994 by the United Nations Security Council in United Nations Security Council Resolution 955, Resolutio ...

(ICTR), among others, shows that both the initial executions and those that quickly follow other acts of extreme violence, such as

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, carried out against a person without consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person ...

and

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...

, are recognized as falling under the first prohibited act. A less settled discussion is whether deaths that are further removed from the initial acts of violence can be addressed under this provision of the Genocide Convention. Legal scholars have posited, for example, that deaths resulting from other genocidal acts, including causing serious bodily or mental harm or the successful deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction, should be considered genocidal killings.

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group ''Article II(b)''

This second prohibited act can encompass a wide range of non-fatal genocidal acts. The ICTR and

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes in the Yugoslav Wars, war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to tr ...

(ICTY) have held that rape and sexual violence may constitute the second prohibited act of genocide by causing both physical and mental harm. In its landmark Akayesu decision, the ICTR held that rapes and sexual violence resulted in "physical and psychological destruction". Sexual violence is a hallmark of genocidal violence, with most genocidal campaigns explicitly or implicitly sanctioning it. It is estimated that 250,000 to 500,000 women were raped in the three months of the Rwandan genocide, many of whom were subjected to multiple rapes or

gang rape In scholarly literature and criminology, gang rape, also called serial gang rape, party rape, group rape, or multiple perpetrator rape,Ullman, S. E. (2013). 11 Multiple perpetrator rape victimization. Handbook on the Study of Multiple Perpetrato ...

. In Darfur, a systemic campaign of rape and often sexual mutilation was carried out, and in Burma, public mass rapes and gang rapes were inflicted on the Rohingya by Burmese security forces.

Sexual slavery Sexual slavery and sexual exploitation is an attachment of any ownership rights, right over one or more people with the intent of Coercion, coercing or otherwise forcing them to engage in Human sexual activity, sexual activities. This includ ...

was documented in the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Turks and Daesh's genocide of the Yazidi. Torture and other cruel,

inhuman, or degrading treatment Cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (CIDT) is treatment of persons which is contrary to human rights or dignity, but is not classified as torture. It is forbidden by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 3 of the European Convention ...

or punishment, when committed with the requisite intent, are also genocide by causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. The ICTY found that both experiencing a failed execution and watching the murder of one's family members may constitute torture. The Syrian Commission of Inquiry (COI) also found that enslavement, removal of one's children into indoctrination or sexual slavery, and acts of physical and sexual violence rise to the level of torture as well. While it was subject to some debate, the ICTY and later the Syrian COI held that under some circumstances deportation and forcible transfer may also cause serious bodily or mental harm.

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction ''Article II(c)''

The third prohibited act is distinguished from the genocidal act of killing because the deaths are not immediate (or may not even come to pass), but rather create circumstances that do not support prolonged life. Due to the longer period of time before the actual destruction would be achieved, the ICTR held that courts must consider the duration of time the conditions are imposed as an element of the act.''Kayishema and Ruzindana,'' (Trial Chamber), 21 May 1999, para. 548 In the 19th century the United States federal government supported the extermination of bison, which Native Americans in the

Great Plains The Great Plains is a broad expanse of plain, flatland in North America. The region stretches east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. They are the western part of the Interior Plains, which include th ...

relied on as a source of food. This was done for various reasons, primarily to pressure them onto reservations during times of conflict. Some genocide experts describe this as an example of genocide that involves removing the means of survival. The ICTR provided guidance into what constitutes a violation of the third act. In Akayesu, it identified "subjecting a group of people to a subsistence diet, systematic expulsion from homes and the reduction of essential medical services below minimum requirement" as rising to genocide. In Kayishema and Ruzindana, it extended the list to include "lack of proper housing, clothing, hygiene and medical care or excessive work or physical exertion" among the conditions. It further noted that, in addition to deprivation of necessary resources, rape could also fit within this prohibited act. In August 2023, founding chief prosecutor of the

(ICC) Luis Moreno Ocampo published a report presenting evidence that

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

was committing genocide against the ethnic Armenians of Artsakh

Nagorno-Karabakh Nagorno-Karabakh (, ; ) is a region in Azerbaijan, covering the southeastern stretch of the Lesser Caucasus mountain range. Part of the greater region of Karabakh, it spans the area between Lower Karabakh and Syunik Province, Syunik. Its ter ...

under Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention by placing their historic land under a comprehensive

blockade A blockade is the act of actively preventing a country or region from receiving or sending out food, supplies, weapons, or communications, and sometimes people, by military force. A blockade differs from an embargo or sanction, which are ...

, cutting all access to food, medical supplies, electricity, gas, internet, and stopping all movement of people to and from Armenia.

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group ''Article II(d)''

The fourth prohibited act is aimed at preventing the protected group from regenerating through

reproduction Reproduction (or procreation or breeding) is the biological process by which new individual organisms – "offspring" – are produced from their "parent" or parents. There are two forms of reproduction: Asexual reproduction, asexual and Sexual ...

. It encompasses acts affecting reproduction and intimate relationships, such as

involuntary sterilization Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, refers to any government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually do ...

forced abortion Forced abortion is a form of reproductive coercion that refers to the act of compelling a woman to undergo termination of a pregnancy against her will or without explicit consent. Forced abortion may also be defined as coerced abortion, and may o ...

, the prohibition of marriage, and long-term separation of men and women intended to prevent procreation. Rape has been found to violate the fourth prohibited act on two bases: where the rape was committed with the intent to impregnate a woman and thereby force her to carry a child of another group (in societies where group identity is determined by

patrilineal Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritanc ...

identity) and where the person raped subsequently refuses to procreate as a result of the trauma. Accordingly, it can take into account both physical and mental measures imposed by the perpetrators.

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group ''Article II(e)''

The final prohibited act is the only prohibited act that does not lead to physical or biological destruction, but rather to the destruction of the group as a cultural and social unit. It occurs when children of the protected group are transferred to the perpetrator group. Boys are typically taken into the group by changing their names to those common of the perpetrator group, converting their religion, and using them for labor or as soldiers. Girls who are transferred are not generally converted to the perpetrator group, but instead treated as chattel, as played out in both the Yazidi and Armenian genocides.

Parties

, there are 153 state parties to the Genocide Convention—representing the vast majority of sovereign nations—with the most recent being

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

in April 2022; one state, the Dominican Republic, has signed but not ratified the treaty. Forty-four states have neither signed nor ratified the convention. Despite its delegates playing a key role in drafting the convention, the United States did not become a party until 1988—a full forty years after it was opened for signature—and did so only with reservations precluding punishment of the country if it were ever accused of genocide. These were due to traditional American suspicion of any international authority that could override US law. U.S. ratification of the convention was owed in large part to campaigning by Senator

William Proxmire Edward William Proxmire (November 11, 1915 – December 15, 2005) was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as a United States Senate, United States Senator from Wisconsin from 1957 ...

, who addressed the Senate in support of the treaty every day it was in session between 1967 and 1986.

Reservations

Immunity from prosecutions

Several parties conditioned their ratification of the Convention on reservations that grant

immunity from prosecution Legal immunity, or immunity from prosecution, is a legal status wherein an individual or entity cannot be held liable for a violation of the law, in order to facilitate societal aims that outweigh the value of imposing liability in such cases. S ...

for genocide without the consent of the national government:

Application to non-self-governing territories

Several countries opposed this article, considering that the convention automatically also should apply to Non-Self-Governing Territories: * Albania * Belarus * Bulgaria * Hungary * Mongolia * Myanmar * Poland * Romania * Russian Federation * Ukraine The opposition of those countries were in turn opposed by: * Australia * Belgium * Brazil * Ecuador * China * Netherlands * Sri Lanka * United Kingdom (However, exceptionally, Australia did make such a notification at the same time as the ratification of the convention for Australia proper, on 8 July 1949, with the effect that the convention did apply also to all territories under Australian control simultaneously, as the USSR ''et alii'' had demanded. The European colonial powers in general did not then make such notifications.)

Litigation

United States

One of the first accusations of genocide submitted to the UN after the Convention entered into force concerned the treatment of

Black Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

. The

Civil Rights Congress The Civil Rights Congress (CRC) was a United States civil rights organization, formed in 1946 at a national conference for radicals and disbanded in 1956. It succeeded the International Labor Defense, the National Federation for Constitutional L ...

drafted a 237-page petition arguing that even after 1945, the United States had been responsible for hundreds of wrongful deaths, both legal and extra-legal, as well as numerous other supposedly genocidal abuses. Leaders from the Black community and left activists William Patterson,

Paul Robeson Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, actor, professional American football, football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for h ...

, and

W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relativel ...

presented this petition to the UN in December 1951. It was rejected as a misuse of the intent of the treaty.John Docker,
Raphaël Lemkin, creator of the concept of genocide: a world history perspective
, ''Humanities Research'' 16(2), 2010. Charges under

We Charge Genocide ''We Charge Genocide'' is a paper accusing the United States government of genocide based on the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, UN Genocide Convention. This paper was written by the Civil Rights Congress (C ...

entailed the lynching of more than 10,000 African Americans with an average of more than 100 per year, with the full number being unconfirmed at the time due to unreported murder cases.

Yugoslavia

The first state and parties to be found in breach of the Genocide Convention were Serbia and Montenegro and numerous Bosnian Serb leaders. In '' Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro,'' the International Court of Justice presented its judgment on 26 February 2007. It cleared Serbia of direct involvement in

during the Bosnian war. International Tribunal findings have addressed two allegations of genocidal events, including the 1992 ethnic cleansing campaign in municipalities throughout Bosnia, as well as the convictions found in regards to the

Srebrenica massacre The Srebrenica massacre, also known as the Srebrenica genocide, was the July 1995 genocidal killing of more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys in and around the town of Srebrenica during the Bosnian War. It was mainly perpetrated by unit ...

of 1995 in which the tribunal found, "Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide, they targeted for extinction, the 40,000 Bosnian Muslims of Srebrenica ... the trial chamber refers to the crimes by their appropriate name, genocide ..." However, individual convictions applicable to the 1992 ethnic cleansings have not been secured. A number of domestic courts and legislatures have found these events to have met the criteria of genocide, and the ICTY found the acts of, and intent to destroy to have been satisfied, the "dolus specialis" still in question and before the MICT, a UN war crimes court, but ruled that

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

did breach international law by failing to prevent the 1995

Srebrenica genocide The Srebrenica massacre, also known as the Srebrenica genocide, was the July 1995 genocidal killing of more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys in and around the town of Srebrenica during the Bosnian War. It was mainly perpetrated by units ...

, and for failing to try or transfer the persons accused of genocide to the

ICTY The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to try their perpetrators. The tribun ...

in order to comply with its obligations under Articles I and VI of the Genocide Convention, in particular in respect of General

Ratko Mladić Ratko Mladić ( sr-Cyrl, Ратко Младић, ; born 12 March 1942) is a Bosnian Serb former military officer who led the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) during the Yugoslav Wars. In 2017, he was found guilty of committing war crimes, crim ...

Myanmar

Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...

has been accused of genocide against its Rohingya community in Rakhine State after around 800,000 Rohingya fled at gunpoint to neighbouring Bangladesh in 2016 and 2017, while their home villages were systematically burned. The International Court of Justice issued its first circular in 2018, asking Myanmar to protect its Rohingya from genocide. Myanmar's civilian government was overthrown by the military on 1 February 2021; since the military is widely seen as the main culprit of the genocide, the coup presents a further challenge to the ICJ.

Russia

Russian accusations of genocide by Ukraine

In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, claiming that it acted, among other reasons, in order to protect Russian-speaking Ukrainians from genocide. This unfounded and false Russian charge has been widely condemned and has been called by genocide experts '

accusation in a mirror Accusation in a mirror (AiM) is a technique often used in the context of hate speech incitement, where one falsely attributes one's own motives or intentions to one's adversaries. It has been cited, along with dehumanization, as one of the indire ...

', a powerful, historically recurring, form of incitement to genocide.

Russian atrocities in Ukraine

Russian forces committed numerous atrocities and war crimes in Ukraine, including all five of the potentially genocidal acts listed in the Genocide Convention.

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, Czechia,

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, and

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

have accused Russia of genocide. In April 2022 Genocide Watch issued a genocide alert for Ukraine. A May 2022 report by 35 legal and genocide experts concluded that Russia has violated the Genocide Convention by the direct and public incitement to commit genocide, and that a pattern of Russian atrocities implies the intent to destroy the Ukrainian national group, and the consequent serious risk of genocide triggers the obligation to prevent it on signatory states.

Israel

In December 2023

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

formally accused

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

of violating the Genocide Convention, filing the case '' South Africa v. Israel (Genocide Convention)'', due to Israel's actions during the

Gaza war The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel fought since 7 October 2023. A part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza–Israel conflicts dating ...

. In addition to starting the litigation process, South Africa also asked the International Court of Justice to demand that Israel cease its military operations in the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...

as a provisional measure.

References

Works cited

* *