section_path: Crime/Genocide Convention
section_name: Genocide Convention
paragraph_text: Genocide Convention
  
  On 9 December 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG); it came into effect on 12 January 1951 after 20 countries ratified it without reservations. The convention's definition of genocide was adopted verbatim by the ad hoc international criminal tribunals and by the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). Genocide is defined as:
  
  ... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
  
  In addition, attempted genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, incitement to genocide, and complicity in genocide are criminalized. The convention does not allow the retroactive prosecution of events that took place prior to 1951. Many countries have incorporated genocide into their municipal law, varying to a lesser or greater extent from the convention.
  
  A specific " intent to destroy " is the mens rea requirement of genocide. The issue of what it means to destroy a group "as such" and how to prove the required intent has been difficult for courts to resolve. The legal system has also struggled with how much of a group can be targeted before triggering the Genocide Convention. The two main approaches to intent are the purposive approach, where the perpetrator specifically intends to commit genocide, and the knowledge-based approach, where the perpetrator understands that genocidal outcomes will result from his actions. Perpetrators do not always make their intentions clear in public statements, although courts sometimes ascribe intent based on other factors. Perpetrators often take advantage of the legal special intent requirement to claim that they merely sought the removal of the group from a given territory, instead of destruction as such, or that the genocidal actions were collateral damage of military activity.