CPPG: Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948 (entered into force 1951)

This was the first human rights Convention to be adopted by the General Assembly after the second World War. Under it, countries recognize that genocide is a crime in international law and undertake to prevent and punish it. The Convention defines genocide as committing any of the acts it lists, for example killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm, to a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, with the intent to destroy the group in whole or in part. This definition has endured and is repeated in the 1999 Statute of the International Criminal Court (see below). Countries must enact domestic legislation to give effect to the Convention. All countries are bound by the Convention as it expresses customary international law.