Second World War." More than 30 years have elapsed since that time, and still we stand apart from the worthy document which was: written in reaction to that unparalleled outrage.

Mr. Chairman, there is no moral, political, or legal argument against U.S. adherence to the Genocide Convention that has merit or validity. There are strong moral, political, and legal reasons why we should become a party. I am hopeful that the Senate can now agree to U.S. adherence to the Convention, agree that it will be in the best interests of our country, of the international community, and of the rule of law everywhere.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[Mr. Christopher's prepared statement follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF WARREN CHRISTOPHER, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: I am very grateful for the opportunity to testify before the Committee in support of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

The Genocide Convention, as it is popularly known, is an important part of the human rights policy of this Administration. As President Carter said in his message to the Senate, "The Convention protects the most fundamental of all human rights-the right to live-and it creates an essential limit on the actions governments may appropriately take with respect to the people they govern." The Convention was unanimously adopted by the United National General Assembly on December 9, 1948. The United States strongly supported its passage. Two days later our government signed the Convention, and President Truman submitted it to the Senate on June 16, 1949. Eighty-three governments-including almost every other major nation of the world-are now parties. The Convention came into force in 1951. Yet as far as the United States is concerned, this international compact stands exactly where it has been for 28 years-pending before the Senate.

It is not necessary now to review all the reasons for our Government's delay. What matters is that the failure of the United States to become a party to the Treaty remains a matter of great puzzlement and concern to other nations, including our closest friends and allies. It is also a matter of concern to this Administration.

I think you join me in believing that the time is long overdue to correct this: anomaly. We are encouraged by the decision of the Committee to hold hearings on the Genocide Convention so early in the new session of Congress. The Administration is also encouraged by the support repeatedly demonstrated by this Committee, which has favorably reported the Convention to the Senate on no less than four occasions, the most recent of which was little more than a year ago, in April 1976.

Last year a significant new endorsement for the Genocide Convention was added to the positive recommendation of a succession of Presidents before President Carter and to the specific endorsements of the Departments of State, Defense, and Justice. In February 1976, the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association, meeting in Philadelphia, approved the Convention by a voicevote and recommended the same understandings and declarations that this Committee had previously attached to its proposed resolution of ratification. To me, this ABA action has cardinal importance; it is the considered judgment of the leading professional association of attorneys in the United States. I believe that this ABA action should have particular impact in the Senate deliberations on the treaty.

As the members of the Committee well know, the Genocide Convention provides that genocide consists of acts intended to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such. The parties to the Convention undertake to establish genocide as criminal behavior, and to punish perpetrators of that crime through their own legal systems.

United States' adherence to this Convention has special meaning to our nation and to the world community. The right to life was initially proclaimed for this nation in the declaration of independence and is obviously the sine qua non of all other human rights. To impose on our Government the explicit duty to respect that right and to punish those who violate it is a clear statement of faith in our own national principles.

At the same time, adherence to the Convention is a statement to the world community that the United States stands ready to develop the international law of human rights and to make such rights a matter of international concern. I believe it is in the national interest of the United States to make such a statement. It is important for all to know that this nation stands ready to commit itself legally, in treaty form, to the assertion that genocide is a crime, and that we will punish those who commit it. I believe it is in our interest to remove an ambiguity in our foreign policy, a source of perplexity and concern about our adherence to a rule of law. I believe that it is in our interest to assist the world community in constructing a legal system that protects human rights. It most certainly is not in our interest to stand aloof while the democratic principles we have long championed are internationally proclaimed and applied by others. The United States should be in the forefront of this movement, as indeed we were when the United Nations drafted and approved this Convention.

In his message to the Senate urging approval of the Convention, President Carter referred to the "wanton acts committed during the Second World War." More than 30 years have elapsed since that time, and still we stand apart from the worthy document which was written in reaction to that unparalleled outrage. Mr. Chairman, there is no valid moral, political, or legal argument against United States' adherence to the Genocide Convention. There are strong moral, political, and legal reasons why we should become a party. I am hopeful that the Senate now can agree that U.S. adherence to the Convention will serve the bests interests of this country, of the international community and of the rule of law everywhere.

Senator STONE. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.

Mr. Chairman.

DEFINITION OF GENOCIDE

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask this simple question in order that we will have it clearly before us.

What is genocide?

Mr. CHRISTOPHER. Genocide is defined in the Convention as consisting of acts intended "to destroy a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group as such," and the parties to the Convention, Mr. Chairman, undertake to establish genocide as criminal behavior and to punish perpretrators of that crime through their own legal systems. The CHAIRMAN. Is genocide murder?

Mr. CHRISTOPHER. Yes, genocide is murder if it consists of acts intended to destroy a group, as such, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such.

The CHAIRMAN. It is murder, or perhaps mass murder.

Mr. CHRISTOPHER. I think that is a very good statement of it, Mr. Chairman. It is mass murder.

The CHAIRMAN. Murder is a crime in the United States; is it not? Mr. CHRISTOPHER. Yes, murder is a crime.

The CHAIRMAN. Why, then, do we have to declare genocide a crime if it is murder, because murder is a crime?

Mr. CHRISTOPHER. This is a special kind of murder.

The CHAIRMAN. I know, but it is murder nevertheless.

I am not arguing with you about its validity. It seems to me that we perhaps have made genocide a kind of special consideration when, as a matter of fact, under the common law it is criminal.

Senator JAVITS. Would the Chair yield?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, but please let me finish this first.

WORKING ON SUPPLEMENTAL LEGISLATION SUGGESTED

This committee has reported out, as you know, on different occasions the Genocide Treaty, but it has been essential, so we were advised,

91-544-77

to have certain implementing legislation. Each time, as I recall, that we have reported it out, we did it on the grounds that it was not to become effective, not to be deposited, until the implementing legislation was enacted.

Why don't we go to work on the implementing legislation?

Mr. CHRISTOPHER. I understand, Mr. Chairman, that the implementing legislation is or will soon be before you. They certainly go in tandem.

The CHAIRMAN. Doesn't the implementing legislation come ahead of the treaty?

Mr. CHRISTOPHER. No, Mr. Chairman, I think not.

The CHAIRMAN. They will not deposit the ratification until the implementing legislation is enacted.

Mr. CHRISTOPHER. That is correct. The ratification could come first and then the implementing legislation and then the deposit of the ratification. That is what we think is the orderly procedure.

The CHAIRMAN. I said that the deposit of the treaty could not be made until there was implementing legislation.

Mr. CHRISTOPHER. Yes.

ABA REVERSAL AND IMPLEMENTING LEGISLATION

The CHAIRMAN. I think a lot of people do not understand that. I agree with you that the action of the American Bar Association, their complete reversal of their stand, has cast a different light on this in the minds, I think, of a lot of people in this country.

Mr. CHRISTOPHER. I am informed, Mr. Chairman, that the implementing legislation was transmitted to the Congress yesterday. I am glad to say that I was in the house of delegates of the ABA at the time the ABA reversed its position. I was one of those who worked for that reversal and I hope it will have the importance that has been indicated here today, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I think it will have some effect. You say now that the implementing legislation was sent up to Congress yesterday?

Mr. CHRISTOPHER. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Does it come before this committee, or the Judiciary Committee, or both?

Mr. CHRISTOPHER. Mr. Chairman, I believe that it goes to the Judiciary Committee.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, I believe you are right. It would go to the Judiciary Committee.

Senator Stone, I think that is all I have for now.

Senator STONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Then I will call on Senator Javits.

Senator JAVITS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Sparkman, I did not mean to interrupt at all.

The CHAIRMAN. Oh, I do understand that. That is quite all right. I wanted to complete my thought at that moment. You see, I am going to have to leave very shortly.

DEFINITION OF GENOCIDE

Senator JAVITS. Of course. But I did want our committee chairman to hear what I wished to say. I have been at this longer than Mr. Chris

topher, by far, and longer than the Department of Justice and most other agencies. The question about whether genocide is murder, I must say, stirs me. Genocide is murder and more. However, it may not qualify as murder under the criminal laws of many states. The reason is that genocide is mass murder by means other than those which might be declared murder in many civilized states.

For example, the treaty covers public incitement to commit genocide. That might be some crime other than murder. If a leading public personality advocates to an audience of half a million that it should go out and eradicate a given racial or other group, it might not be murder, but we are defining it as murder because that is what it is, murder on a grand scale.

LACK OF SENATE ACTION CONDEMNED

It really does make my blood run cold, Mr. Secretary, to sit here and hear after all of these years the same points repeated. That is one of the most shocking failures of our country, of our system.

What you said about the implementing statute and the treaty illustrates it. The Judiciary Committee will not consider this unless the treaty is ratified, and we are not going to ratify it unless the Judiciary Committee considers it. Now how crazy can we be?

There is implementing legislation. It has been around for years. Hugh Scott introduced it in the last Congress. As a matter of fact, it is attached as an appendix to a report of the committee, our own committee, which is Executive Report No. 94-23, 94th Congress, 2d session.

For years the objections of the American Bar Association were considered to be a barrier on the ground that the United States would not be able to try its own citizens if they committed crimes. But the implementing legislation takes care of that. In addition, we have incorporated in our resolution of ratification and we will again, not a reservation, because that would cause the whole treaty to be renegotiated, but in a declaration, to wit: that the U.S. Government declares that it will not deposit its instrument of ratification until after the implementing legislatoin referred to in article 5 has been enacted.

That particular piece of legislation, to which I was also a cosponsor, provides that people guilty of this crime shall be tried in U.S. courts, thus eliminating all of the arguments that somebody could extradite an American and try him in some foreign or international court.

It seems to me, Mr. Secretary, that every conceivable argument that could ever be thought up about this has been thought up and so decisively repudiated that even the American Bar Association has changed its mind. The only one that has not changed its mind is the Senate of the United States. Now that is not because the Senate does not want to, but because there is a band of willful men here who stand in its way, whatever may be the dictates of humanity, or of reason, or of law, or of international comity, or of friendship. It is just beyond belief.

It has really gotten beyond the point of questions and answers. It has just gotten to the point only of indignation and outrage.

If we could only ignite enough Americans to feel as you do and I do and others like us do, why this thing would have been ratified long before this. It is just shocking and shameful.

Mr. CHRISTOPHER. Senator, if I could just respond by associating myself with your outstanding statement and say that to me the fact that genocide is murder does not remove the need for ratification, it enhances it. What we need is an endorsement of the obligation to prosecute in situations covered by the treaty.

DEFINITION OF GENOCIDE

Senator JAVITS. Of course, as our Chief of Staff points out, the definition in the treaty deals also with the permanent impairment of mental faculties and other means of human subjections, which are worse than murder, because they produce a living dead and yet this may not qualify technically as the crime of murder.

I ask unanimous consent that that particular section of the implementing legislation be made a part of my remarks together with the pertinent part of the treaty on that score.

Senator STONE. Without objection, that will be done. [The information referred to follows:]

[Excerpt from text of Genocide Convention]

TEXT OF RESOLUTION OF RATIFICATION

Resolved (two-thirds of the Senators present concurring therein), That the Senate advise and consent to the ratification of the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted unanimously by the General Assembly of the United Nations in Paris on December 9, 1948, and signed on behalf of the United States on December 11, 1948 (Executive O, Eightyfirst Congress, first session) subject to the following understandings and declaration:

*

2. That the United States Government understands and construes the words "mental harm” appearing in article II (b) of this Convention to mean permanent impairment of mental faculties."

[Excerpt from implementing legislation]

"(a) Whoever, being a national of the United States or otherwise under or within the jurisdiction of the United States, willfully without justifiable cause, commits, within or without the territory of the United States in time of peace or in time of war, any of the following acts with the intent to destroy by means of the commission of that act, or with the intent to carry out a plan to destroy, the whole or a subsantial part of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group shall be guilty of genocide:

"(1) kills members of the group;

"(2) causes serious bodily injury to members of the group;

"(3) causes the permanent impairment of the mental faculties of members of the group by means of torture, deprivation of physical or physiological needs, surgical operation, introduction of drugs or other foreign substances into the bodies of such members, or subjection to psychological or psychiatric treatment calculated to permanently impair the mental processes, or nervous system, or motor functions of such members;

"(4) subjects the group to cruel, unusual, or inhumane conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the group or a substantial part thereof;

"(5) imposes measures calculated to prevent birth within the group as a means of effecting the destruction of the group as such; or

"(6) transfers by force the children of the group to another group, as a means of effecting the destruction of the group as such."