section_path: Crime/Prosecutions
section_name: Prosecutions
paragraph_text: Prosecutions
  
  During the Cold War, genocide remained at the level of rhetoric because both superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) felt vulnerable to accusations of genocide, and were therefore unwilling to press charges against the other party. Despite political pressure to charge "Soviet genocide", the United States government refused to ratify the convention fearing countercharges of racial segregation against African Americans. The first conviction for genocide in an international court was in 1998 for a perpetrator of the Rwandan genocide. The first head of state to be convicted of genocide was in 2018 for the Cambodian genocide.
  
  Prosecutions for genocide do not obviously satisfy any of the purposes that criminal prosecution is supposed to serve. Retribution is impossible because any punishment proportionate to the crime would require collective punishment, which violates the principle of individual guilt. The most plausible rationale for prosecuting genocide perpetrators is that it could prevent future genocides, but very few perpetrators are ever brought to trial and evidence of a deterrent effect is lacking. However, genocide prosecutions might still serve the goal of upholding the power of international law.