Washington Post: “Donald Trump just threatened to commit genocide” by Ben Kiernan and David Simon

September 26, 2017

President Trump’s address to the United Nations General Assembly last week was noted for its aggressiveness, bellicosity and emphasis on U.S. sovereignty over multilateralism. Whatever one thinks of that approach, that wasn’t the most notable aspect. The speech made an open and outright threat to commit genocide: “The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.”

Had Trump threatened to “totally destroy” that country’s nuclear weapons capacity, its army, its government, or its physical infrastructure, the implications under international law would be different, but carrying out his threat “to totally destroy North Korea” would necessarily sow mass death among its population of over 25 million, in direct contravention of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The Convention defines genocide as acts that are undertaken with the intent to destroy, “in whole or in part,” a “national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” While simply threatening to commit genocide is not a clear violation of the Convention, conspiracy and public incitement to do so are. If Trump were to act on his threat, he will have signaled his criminal intent in advance.

Read the full article at WashingtonPost.com.