CONVENTION ON PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE FROM 1948 – SOME LEGAL ISSUES

Lopičić Jančić Jelena (Prof dr. Jelena Lopičić Jančić, redovni profesor na Akademiji za diplomatiju i bezbednost u Beogradu), jelena.lopicic@vektor.net

Genocide is one of the most serious crimes, which has unfortunately continuously been committed from the ancient times until the present day to a greater or lesser extent. It is evident that in the last two centuries (XIX and XX century) the genocide was committed to a greater extend, although at that time there were made a number of international multilateral conventions signed and adopted by most modern countries, whose purpose was to prevent wars as well as rules that must be applied during the wars and armed conflicts. It is the fact that the League of Nations and the United Nations were unable to prevent the outbreak of many wars and armed conflicts, although war and armed conflicts were prohibited by the League of Nations and now by the United Nations Charter. After the horrors of the second World War, when there were committed unseen mass war crimes against civilians, prisoners of war, wounded, sick and shipwrecked, including crimes of physical extermination of certain group of people: Jews, Slavs and Gypsies the international community, and the United Nations especially, adopted in 1948 the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The obligation of the parties who signed the Convention was to enact in their legislations the crime of genocide. In this article the author has discussed and critically commented the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crime of Genocide. It underlines that this Convention has an international, political and legal significance; despite some defects it has justified its existence and the best proof for that is that this Convention has been signed, ratified or adopted by 145 countries, which means most modern countries in the world.

Keywords: Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, war, armed conflict