Genocide Convention and International Law

Study Notes

Israel's Defense Minister Yav Galant's statement is part of South Africa's 84-page document submitted to the UN's International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention by committing acts of genocide against the Palestinian people.
Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish lawyer, coined the term "genocide" after losing family members in the Holocaust and researching the Armenian genocide, leading to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
The Convention states that genocide, whether committed in peacetime or wartime, is a crime under international law, and contracting parties must prevent and punish it.
Only a handful of cases involving the Genocide Convention have led to trials in international courts, with only one being legally recognized as genocide.
The International Court of Justice has heard four cases involving the Genocide Convention, with only one being legally recognized as genocide.
The International Criminal Court has tried and legally recognized three instances of genocide, but with limited convictions due to difficulties in proving the required intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
Criminal acts that constitute genocide include killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, creating conditions to destroy, preventing births, or forcibly transferring children to other groups, but these acts must be proven to be committed with the intent to destroy the group.
The burden of proof lies in establishing the intent to destroy, which sets genocide apart from war crimes and crimes against humanity, making it difficult to prove.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda handed down the first genocide conviction in 1998, sentencing Jean Kambanda, the Prime Minister, to life in prison.
The Tribunal indicted 93 people, convicted and sentenced 62, and acquitted 14, but this represents only a limited number compared to the thousands involved in the genocide.
The case against the Khmer Rouge regime, which caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians, took 28 years to formally charge and 15 years to convict only three people, with many suspects dying before being presented before a judge.
Serbian General Ratko Mladić was charged with genocide for ordering the massacre of over 8,000 people, but was only found guilty of genocide in one count where forensic evidence and eyewitness accounts proved systemic executions.
South Africa's application to the ICJ presents quotes from top Israeli officials as evidence of inflammatory language, and points out the high number of civilians killed and destruction of infrastructure, as evidence of genocidal intent.
The ICJ has ruled that Israel must abide by a series of provisional measures, including ensuring its military abides by the Genocide Convention and allowing unimpeded access of food aid and humanitarian assistance into Gaza.