Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law Logo Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law

You are here: Publications Archive World Court Digest

World Court Digest



I. Substantive International Law - First Part
7. LAW OF TREATIES
7.9. Specific Treaties
7.9.6. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide of 1948

¤ Application of the Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
(Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Yugoslavia),
Preliminary Objections, Judgment of 11 July 1996,
I.C.J. Reports 1996, p. 595

[p. 616] 32. The Court now comes to the second proposition advanced by Yugoslavia, regarding the type of State responsibility envisaged in Article IX of the Convention. According to Yugoslavia, that Article would only cover the responsibility flowing from the failure of a State to fulfil its obligations of prevention and punishment as contemplated by Articles V, VI and VII - on the other hand, the responsibility of a State for an act of genocide perpetrated by the State itself would be excluded from the scope of the Convention
The Court would observe that the reference in Article IX to "the responsibility of a State for genocide or for any of the other acts enumerated in Article III", does not exclude any form of State responsibility
Nor is the responsibility of a State for acts of its organs excluded b Article IV of the Convention, which contemplates the commission of act of genocide by "rulers" or "public officials".