Subject: | What is Genocide and what is the Genocide Treaty? |
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Date: | Wed, 18 Mar 2020 17:26:30 -0500 |
From: | Larry <bec...@hiwaay.net> |
There are 4 crimes that the US Constitution expressly
authorizes Congress to make penal: treason, counterfeiting,
piracies and felonies on the high seas, and offenses against the
law of nations. A more detailed analysis of the treaty power of
Congress is discussed here:
http://home.hiwaay.net/%7Ebecraft/TREATIES.htm
As a result of WWII, the international community desired to
criminalize some of the more horrendous crimes committed during
that time, and that effort resulted in the Genocide Convention:
See:
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf
Pursuant to its authority to ratify treaties, the Genocide
Treaty was adopted in 1987 and shortly thereafter, Congress
enacted new provisions in the federal criminal code:
18 U.S. Code §1091. Genocide
(a) Basic Offense.—Whoever, whether in time of peace or in time
of war and with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in
substantial part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group
as such—
(1) kills members of that group;
(2) causes serious bodily injury to
members of that group;
(3) causes the permanent impairment of
the mental faculties of members of the group through drugs,
torture, or similar techniques;
(4) subjects the group to conditions of
life that are intended to cause the physical destruction of
the group in whole or in part;
(5) imposes measures intended to prevent births within the
group; or
(6) transfers by force children of the group to another group;
shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).
See:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1091