Documents on the Genocide Convention From the American, British, and Russian Archives by Weiss-Wendt Anton

Author:Weiss-Wendt, Anton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK

IV

Debates on the Draft Genocide Convention in the UN General Assembly, September–December 1948 (nos. 81–113)

The British entered the debates on genocide in the ECOSOC’s Sixth Committee (Legal) in the fall of 1948 as skeptical as ever. A newly appointed UK delegate on the committee, Gerald Fitzmaurice, was expected to put forward “some pretty devastating criticism of those provisions which we think to be totally impracticable” (doc. 81). The United Kingdom anticipated disagreement by national delegations on just anything apart from the definition of genocide (doc. 82). Acquiesced to the idea of a UN sponsored Genocide Convention, the Foreign Office did not bet on an ICC to be established any time soon. It wanted to ensure that British nationals potentially charged with genocide be tried in the United Kingdom (doc. 83). The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions was particularly concerned with cultural genocide, arguing that its excessively broad definition might be used to obtain extradition in cases that effectively constituted political offenses (doc. 84). The UK delegation ascertained that the debates in the Sixth Committee, which opened in early October, featured starkly different opinions. So substantial was the disagreement that the delegation was considering adopting a mere declaration of support rather than the actual convention (doc. 85). Particularly tricky proved the issue of political groups. Fitzmaurice proposed deleting from the draft Genocide Convention the words “on grounds of . . . political opinion of its members,” which Foreign Office officials back in London thought was a mistake (docs. 86–87). The FO’s Working Party on Genocide alerted the UK delegation that accession to any convention presupposed passing enabling legislation in Parliament. An international tribunal was not just improbable but undesirable, while the question of political groups tied up with that of extradition for political crimes (docs. 88–89).

The dissonance between the UK delegation to the United Nations and the Foreign Office was aggravated by the emerging gap between the latter and the Home Office (HO). The Home Office contended that the delegation had taken too proactive a stand on genocide, in particular with regard to political groups. Hypothetically, had a “political group” in Britain used excessive violence to defy the constitutional authorities, the latter would certainly intend to destroy that group and/or kill members of that group (doc. 91). Although the Foreign Office chose to disagree on a level of detail, it reassured the Home Office nothing could commit the delegation to signature. “The whole subject is of course quite unreal,” wrote Paul Mason, head of the FO’s UN Department, “and I imagine that there is practically no chance of our becoming parties to the convention which is beginning to emerge” (docs. 92, 94). Indeed, despite the slow progress in the Sixth Committee, by November the Genocide Convention started taking shape (doc. 94).

Ernest Gross, US delegate on the Sixth Committee, was convinced that the Soviet Union would never accept any convention that gives rise to international enforcement. Furthermore, he believed the Soviets intended to sabotage the Genocide Convention by means of amendments so as to preclude a two-thirds vote in the General Assembly (doc.

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