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6 - Punishable Acts of Genocide

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

William A. Schabas
Affiliation:
Middlesex University, London
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Summary

The five punishable acts of genocide are listed in the paragraphs of article II: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. The list is an exhaustive one rather than an indicative one. The Secretariat draft of the Convention divided the acts into three categories, physical genocide, biological genocide and cultural genocide. Cultural genocide was rejected but one act from the category was retained, that of forcibly transferring children. A proposal to add a crime of driving people out of their ancestral homeland was rejected by the General Assembly. Sexual and gender-based violence is encompassed by the act of causing serious bodily or mental harm.

Type
Chapter
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Genocide in International Law
The Crime of Crimes
, pp. 279 - 324
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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