Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

66. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he will report on the most serious incidences of genocide reported in the past year; the action taken at EU and UN level to combat the problem; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3914/18]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Article II of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, to which Ireland has acceded, defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

a. Killing members of the group;

b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

A similar definition of genocide is contained in Article 6 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Since the term “genocide” is a term which has a particular meaning under international law, recognition of events definitively as genocide involves a complex analysis of both facts and law.

My Department tracks situations throughout the world which may give rise to mass atrocities, including genocide, and regularly intervenes to raise its concerns at a bilateral level and in international forums including the European Union, the Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly.

In 2015, Ireland co-sponsored UN General Assembly Resolution 69/323 which designated 9 December as the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of This Crime.

The EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy 2015 – 2019 reaffirms the European Union's commitment to promote and protect human rights and to support democracy worldwide. Within this plan, the EU, through the EEAS, Commission and Member States, commits to enhance co-operation with and support for the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the UN Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect, as well as other international and regional actors and civil society organisations engaged in preventive action.