Amendment to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, and the Rome Statute, a global necessity.

Asuncion, Paraguay

The Global Embassy of Activists for Peace, held in Paraguay, the first International Judicial Forum "New proposals for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide" on Tuesday 18 March, in the Auditorium of the Palace of Justice.

Before starting the Forum, the ministers of the Supreme Court, held a meeting with Dr. William Soto and members of the board of the institution, where the World Ambassador made the official presentation of his new proposal for the Amendment of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and the Rome Statute.

During the Forum, Soto said the Convention had been a necessary response to genocidal violence; however, times and societies have changed. Because of this mutation of time, he said the Convention now has a narrow definition, and has therefore made a proposal to amend these instruments of international law.

He said: "My proposal as World Peace Ambassador, is that you amend the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and the Rome Statute.

I consider these instruments of international law to currently have a limited scope, given the progress of our ever changing and dynamic global society,

In this century, given the overflowing evidence of discrimination, intolerance and violence against certain groups, it is necessary to promote the modification of the Convention and the Rome Statute, to include political and economic groups as passive subjects of the crime of genocide; to contemplate ethnocide or cultural genocide a crime, along with the forcible transfer and adults. All these acts are perpetrated with the aim of totally or partially destroying the group.

He also emphasized that the Global Embassy of Activists for Peace’s project for the amendment of the Genocide Convention, includes the provision that, in the case that the UN takes measures to prevent, deter or punish genocide, none of the five powers may exercise the right to veto. This project also endorses that at least one of the Latin American and Caribbean countries form a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Moreover, the proposal includes establishing, permanent observatories to monitor racial exclusion and cultural, political, religious, identity, gender and any other type of discrimination, in countries that have not implemented them.

The Amendment to the Convention, a latent need

For his part, Dr. Camilo Montoya Reyes, a specialist in Penal and Criminological Sciences and Attorney before the Court of Colombia, spoke on the subject "Genocide as a capital crime." In his presentation he noted that the Amendment to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide has been a concern of indoctrinators, criminologists and writers, and is now of interest to the Global Embassy of Activists for Peace