Convention on Genocide

In 1948, the United Nations adopted the conventions on genocide.

The U.N. defines genocide the following way:
 Genocide means 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;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group   

The following acts are punishible:

(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.


Every UN member nation (today almost every nation) has promised to intervene and stop genocide wherever and whenever it occurs

This was affirmed in 1948 by the original member nations, and by each member nation who joined after that at the time they joined