Anniversary of the UN Genocide Convention

On December 9, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide . It bans acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. It declares genocide a crime under international law whether committed during war or peacetime, and binds all signatories to take measures to prevent and punish any acts of genocide committed within their jurisdiction.

For more information, see:

• Frederick K. Cox International Law Center War Crimes Research Portal web links on genocide (Case Western Reserve University School of Law, Cleveland): the portal contains over a thousand links to websites related to international humanitarian law, arranged alphabetically by subject area; the text of research memoranda on issues pending before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the International Criminal Court; a Research Guide to international humanitarian law and tribunals; and "instant analysis" articles, written each month by the members of the American Branch of the International Association of Penal Law, on the hottest topics in international criminal law
• War Crimes Project (New England School of Law): the project has "a unique arrangement with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, under which New England School of Law students provide legal research and analysis to the war crimes prosecutor on issues pending before the Tribunal. Issues range from the contours of command responsibility to the interpretation of the Genocide Convention"
• Bibliography on International Humanitarian Law/Laws of War (Crimes of War Project): the Project is a collaboration of journalists, lawyers and scholars dedicated to raising public awareness of the laws of war and their application to situations of conflict. It receives funding through the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Open Society Institute, and the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley
• Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (Concordia University): features the "Memoirs of Holocaust Survivors in Canada" project collecting unpublished diaries and memoirs from victims of the Holocaust. In addition, the site features a bibliography of books and a collection of occasional papers by Institute researchers. Concordia is home to major research collections among which the David Azrieli Holocaust Collection, which includes an extensive collection of North American theses and dissertations on aspects of the Holocaust; a complete set of the Nuremberg trials; and hundreds of reels of microfilm of the unpublished intelligence records of the United States and Great Britain relating to the Nazi Holocaust
• Genocide Watch: non-governmental organization that exists "to predict, prevent, stop, and punish genocide and other forms of mass murder. We seek to raise awareness and influence public policy concerning potential and actual genocide". Board of advisors includes a former prosecutor of Nazi war criminals, Canadian General Roméo Dallaire and various prominent genocide and Holocaust experts. The site includes a Genocide Watch News Monitor section, and a section featuring articles by academics and international scholars
• Institute for the Study of Genocide/International Association of Genocide Scholars: the Institute is located at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York. It exists to promote and disseminate scholarship and policy analyses on the causes, consequences, and prevention of genocide. The Association, founded in 1994, promotes comparative research on the links between genocide and gross human rights violations, and on the prevention and punishment of genocide. The joint website offers access to the ISG newsletter, a bibliography of basic genocide books, the text of the UN Genocide Convention and social scientists’ definitions of genocide.
• Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (University of Minnesota): the site contains resources such as curricula for educators of holocaust and genocide studies. A list of genocide and holocaust-related websites and a bibliographic database of relevant books and articles are also available.
• Genocide Studies Program (Yale University): offers bibliographic, geographic, and photographic databases of resources on various projects dealing with Holocaust trauma, colonial genocides, Rwanda, Cambodia, East Timor, Rwanda, Bosnia etc.
• War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, Genocide, and Terrorism (University of Minnesota Human Rights Library): a collection of treaties and basic documents