Genocide Convention Message to the Senate Recommending Ratification.

To the Senate of the United States:

I am honored to have the privilege of recommending to the Senate that it approve the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This Convention was initially drafted in the wake of the wanton acts committed by some of our enemies during the Second World War. With the strong support of the United States, the Convention was unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948.

The Convention, which now has 83 parties, provides that genocide consists of acts intended to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious groups as such. The parties to the Convention undertake to establish genocide as a criminal behavior under their own legal systems.

The Convention thus 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 right to life was initially proclaimed for this nation in the Declaration of Independence. The promise of the Declaration was to protect that right by instituting a new and democratic government in America. Today it is important that this nation assist the world community to protect the right to life internationally.

The Genocide Convention has been recommended by a succession of Presidents, with specific endorsement by the Departments of State, Defense and Justice. It also has the support of many of our distinguished citizens and organizations, including the American Bar Association.

I urge the Senate to give its advice and consent to the ratification of the Convention. Ratification would be a significant enhancement of the human rights commitments of this nation, demonstrating again to the world in concrete fashion our determination to advance and protect human rights.

JIMMY CARTER

The White House,

May 23, 1977.