ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the political compromises that occurred during the drafting of the Genocide Convention. The jus cogens prohibition of political genocide is expressed in national legislation. The chapter describes the atrocities perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia to demonstrate the shortfalls of the definition of genocide in the Genocide Convention. It also describes the scope of the jus cogens prohibition of genocide, and argues that treaty provisions such as Article II carry no legal weight when they conflict with a jus cogens norm as a higher form of law. The chapter also argues that the Genocide Convention is not the sole authority on the crime of genocide. It provides political persecution accompanied other forms of persecution, so that the victims and perpetrators of the Khmer Rouge era would receive disparate justice as a result of the Genocide Convention's blind spot.
