Modernization of the Genocide Clause of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

Abstract

The present Article brings up an issue on the necessity to modernize the disposition of Article 357 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (genocide). As a reference for improvement of the genocide law, the authors used the criminal codes of some foreign countries that expanded the term of genocide under the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide signed in the year 1948. The revealed ways of improving the genocide law were critically analyzed. The inclusion of sexual assault into the list of acts of genocide along with the excessive expansion of the groups protected by the law on the abovementioned crime are negatively assessed. The recognition of a concept of cultural genocide, which is elimination of a group possessing any distinctive cultural features by liquidation of such features, is considered as a rational way of modernizing the genocide law. The analysis of Article 357 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation revealed that similar expansion of the “genocide” term does not contradict its core features. As a conclusion, the authors of the present Article suggest a new edition of Article 357 of the Criminal Code.