Reshumot - Records - Conventions, convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948, signed on behalf of the State of Israel on August 17, 1949 . Hebrew and English page by page - one of the most important historical documents to which the State of Israel is committed. Published by the Government Printer.
Convention - The official first document of the Records of the State of Israel regarding the prevention and punishment for genocide. This is the original official version of the convention to which the State of Israel is a signatory, detailing the penalty clauses for "genocide" even before being officially adopted as Knesset law passed on March 29, 1950.
"Considering that at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity, and convinced that to remove this despicable whip from mankind requires international cooperation, the Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish..." The Convention defines what constitutes an act of "genocide": "Killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, forcibly transferring children of the group to another group...". Further, that persons charged with genocide shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the State in the territory of which the act was committed, or by such international penal tribunal. Additional clauses regulate implementation of the Convention signed by additional States.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the UN General Assembly in resolution 260 on December 8, 1948 and entered into force on January 12, 1951, following World War II and the Holocaust. The Convention was created by Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish lawyer and citizen of Belarus who immigrated to the United States and studied the topic of genocide. Lemkin, who coined the term "genocide", was determined to form an official document that would help prevent cases of genocide and also punish its perpetrators, and therefore submitted his conclusions to the UN General Assembly, which were primarily based on his research of the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust and the destruction of Romani people during World War II.
The Convention stipulates that "genocide" is the killing of people or causing them severe harm because of their national, ethnic, religious or racial affiliation, with the intent to fully or partially destroy the group, irrespective of individual guilt.
Israel acceded to the Convention on August 17, 1949 (the document before us) and ratified it on March 9, 1950. The Law regarding the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, 1950 was passed by the Knesset on March 29, 1950.
Prior to adoption of the Convention during occurrences of pogroms, States were prohibited from intervening in another State's internal affairs. Drafting the Convention established the practical principle for the first time in history - that when genocide occurs in any State, all signatory States are obligated to actively work to prevent it and bring perpetrators to justice. Implementation of the Convention in Israeli law was applied de facto in the Eichmann Trial where he was charged under the count of "genocide".
[12] p (Continuous page numbering 54-74, from the "Reshumot" numbers). Brown paper. Condition good - very good.
