AN APPRAISAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE

Abstract

As an international legal concept, genocide is a relatively recent development, but the facts surrounding the crime of genocide are as old as humankind. The crime of genocide is meant to protect and preserve certain groups from decimation or attempted extinction. Genocide has been restyled the crime of crimes and the supreme crime. This paper seeks to examine the character, the historical component and the general anatomy of the crime of genocide and provides a methodological analysis of the elements of the crime. This paper submits that for all intent and purposes, the existence of a crime of genocide involves a consolidated catastrophic act and intent. It is this combined effort that crystallizes and forms the required intent to destroy a protected group in whole or in Part. In other words, the mere hope of a person to contribute, by way of committing one of the fundamental offences, to the destruction of a group falls short of this legal idea of a realistic genocidal intent and purpose. The foregoing is absolutely in contradistinction to the intuitive definition of the various categories of protected groups. Therefore, care must be taken not to mistake the crime of genocide for an unquantified violation of gigantic human rights which is based on a discriminatory motive. The expansion of the meaning of the words ‘intent’, ‘destroy,' and 'part' have probably led to the over explication of the definition of the crime of genocide. This paper recommends that the word ‘intent’ suggests that those who commit the unauthorized act have the intention to carry out a plot that targets members of a secured group with the sole aim of annihilating that group, either as a whole or in Part.