Drumbl, Mark A. --- "The crime of genocide" [2011] ELECD 95; in Brown, S. Bartram (ed), "Research Handbook on International Criminal Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Research Handbook on International Criminal Law

Editor(s): Brown, S. Bartram

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847202789

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: The crime of genocide

Author(s): Drumbl, Mark A.

Number of pages: 25

Extract:

3 The crime of genocide
Mark A. Drumbl*



OVERVIEW AND DEFINITION
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (`Genocide
Convention', adopted in 1948) defines genocide as:

[A]ny of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethni-
cal, 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.1

The Genocide Convention's definition reappears in other international legal instruments,
such as article 2(2) of the Statute of the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
(1994) (ICTR),2 article 4(2) of the Statute of the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia (1993) (ICTY),3 and article 6 of the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court (ICC) (entered into force in 2002).4 In the case of the ICC Statute, additional
elaborative content is provided by the Elements of the Crimes (under article 9 of the ICC
Statute, the Elements of the Crimes assist judges and parties before the ICC in interpreting
and applying the proscribed crimes). As Cherif Bassiouni observes, genocide `remains a
single instrument crime' owing to the influence of the Genocide Convention.5
...