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Prior to the Nazi holocaust, no treaty made genocide an international crime. Despite that legal void, the Nuremberg tribunal convicted German leaders for genocide by reasoning that their crimes against humanity violated customary international law.
In 1948 the newly established United Nations promptly adopted The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The 112 parties to the convention include Yugoslavia and all of its successor republics.
In Article I the state parties agree that genocide "is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish."
Article II defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, 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; . . .";
Article IX provides that "disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to . . .the responsibility of a State for genocide . . . shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties . . ." The Convention also envisions the possible creation of an international criminal tribunal to punish individuals, but until that time calls for their prosecution in national courts.
