Abstract
This article examines the scope of the duty that arises from Article 1 of the Genocide Convention[1] (hereinafter, the Convention) that imposes on States the dual obligation to prevent and punish genocide as an international crime. The analysis will focus on the legal problems arising from the punishable acts of Article 3 which asserts a prophylactic framework regarding the crime of genocide. This article argues that Article 3 is fundamental to the obligation to prevent as well as punish since the prohibited acts are inchoate (meaning incomplete). If an act of genocide is legally conceived as incomplete, it can, in theory, be repressed in the spirit of the Convention.
 
 [1] “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” open for signature December 9, 1948, registration no. A/RES/3/260, http://un-documents.net/a3r260.htm.
Highlights
Scholars have characterised the Genocide Convention as “terse” or “laconic.”[2] TheConvention asserts the contours of the crime of genocide in Articles 2 and 3
This article examines the scope of the duty that arises from Article 1 of the Genocide Convention[1] that imposes on States the dual obligation to prevent and punish genocide as an international crime
The analysis will focus on the legal problems arising from the punishable acts of Article 3 which asserts a prophylactic framework regarding the crime of genocide
Summary
Scholars have characterised the Genocide Convention as “terse” or “laconic.”[2] The. Convention asserts the contours of the crime of genocide in Articles 2 and 3. Article 3 (a) asserts genocide as a punishable act, but the other acts of genocide[14] acquire their significance apropos prevention as “inchoate” or incomplete infractions: infraction formelle under civil law, meaning punishable as such The gravity of such inchoate acts derives from the high risk of future violations, even if the principal offence, namely genocide, never takes place.[15] This follows from the legal requirement that perpetrators of the inchoate acts of Article 3 harbour the special intent to destroy in whole or in part a protected group. 13 William Schabas, Genocide in International Law: The Crime of Crimes, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 81
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