ABSTRACT
Article V of the Genocide Convention requires that states adopt the necessary legislation to give full effect to the treaty, especially by the adoption of effective penalties, but, as such, it does not prescribe that states have to incorporate the precise definitions of the Convention in their criminal codes. The result was that a significant group of states did not adopt specific legislation on genocide, partially because of the mistaken belief that the crime already falls under ordinary criminal law provisions prohibiting murder and bodily harm. Yet, this point of view misses the exceptional nature of the crime of genocide: genocide is not an accumulation of individual killings, but it is the targeting of human beings because they belong to a group, which one seeks to destroy. 1 Acts of genocide in Yugoslavia and Rwanda caught these states off-guard since they had no adequate means to prosecute alleged perpetrators of genocide. This was even the case for monist countries, for which international treaty law under certain conditions becomes part of domestic law upon ratification. As evidenced by Article V, the provisions cannot be considered as self-executing since it is required that state parties enact the necessary legislation to implement the Convention. Consequently, Rwanda, which had acceded to the Convention in 1975, 2 had to adopt Organic Law No. 08/96 since it had not incorporated specific provisions about genocide in its domestic law. As for Belgium, although treaties which are self-executing are part of Belgian law and can be invoked before national courts, 3 it did not prosecute Rwandans for the crime of genocide because it had only made genocide a criminal offence in 1999 despite its ratification of the Convention in 1951. 4
