14 Friday, December 25, 1981 COMPLETE ALTERATIONS Reasonable Prices HERBERT Cleaners & Tailors Expert Cleaning Lowest Prices Also Suede, Leather & Drapes 24709 Coolidge at 10 Mile Across from Dexter Davison 399-0336 PROFESSIONAL VI LIVING MEMORIES THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS U.S. Senate Genocide Convention Approval Pending (Editor's note: The U.S. under President Harry Truman took the lead to sponsor the Genocide Convention obligations in the United Nations. Some 100 countries, in- cluding the USSR, have adopted it. Nevertheless, the U.S. Senate remains complacent and fails to endorse the important DEO PHOTOGAPHY VHS OR BETA I • Weddings • Bar Mitzvas • Bat Mitzvas • Anniversaries • Special Occasions • Commercial or Industrial QUALIFIED CAMERA CREWS FULLY EDITED 352-7030 Leo Kt)igbt Pbotograpby CALL 26511 W. 12 MILE RD. at Northwestern Hwy. humanitarian movement outlawing national mass murders. The most recent debate on the subject is described in this article by Ralph Nurnberger which appeared in the Near East Report.) "On Dec. 3, the Senate Foreign Relations Commit- tee held hearings again on the Genocide Convention. Members and witnesses ex- pressed the hope that, after nearly 30 years, the Senate would finally ratify it. "Chairman Charles Percy (R-I11.) noted that the Con- vention had been an Ameri- can initiative, and argued the ratification would reaf- firm this country's corn- mitment to international law and human dignity. "Ranking minority member Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) emphasized that the Senate's continued fail- ure to ratify raises doubts as to whether the U.S. has learned the lessons of the Holocaust. 1982 T 100 0 J 20 00 A 6000 ADD UP TO BIG 'NB' GAS SAVINGS ART MORAN PONTIAC 29300 TELEGRAPH JUST NORTH OF TEL-TWELVE MALL 353-9000 LAWRENCE M. Preside'it ALLAN CIEMOLOGIST i,JOIAMONTOLOGIST Diamond Stud .112I ■ • VI ,, - Earrings A Super Look %Nit Ir f • At A Super Low Price DIAMONDS OUR SPECIALTY 30400 TELEGRAPH • BIRMINGHAM 111.141"LOCATED AT 1.2 1 /2 Mile SUITES 104/134 Awarded Certificate by GIA in Grading & Evaluation 642.5575 co "Witnesses included Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.); former Sen. Jacob Javits; American Bar Association (ABA) representatives; Richard Gardner, Columbia Uni- versity international law professor. "Proxmire, who has de- livered over 2,500 speeches for ratification, stressed that no subject has been pending before the Senate as long as this one. Until it is ratified, he asserted, the world would question America's commitment to its principles. "Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) testified against the treaty, claiming that 'where it should restrain at- rocity it is not observed, and where it would be observed it is unnecessary.' He also raised Constitutional objec- tions. The ultra-right wing Liberty Lobby provided the only other hostile tes- timony. "Two groups" have tradi- tionally been opposed to the treaty. Some Constitutional scholars have questioned whether a treaty is a proper vehicle to deal with crimes of murder, which they be- lieve should be handled by the states, not the federal government by means of an international agreement. "Other objections fo- cused on certain am- biguous language in the treaty. For example, Ar- ticle, II outlaws 'acts committed with an intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a ... group.' The phrase in part' might be applied to a limited form of race violence, such as lynchings. These am- biguities were ultimately resolved by adding a series of 'reservations' to the treaty. "The legal and Constitu- tional opposition to the treaty was originally led by the ABA. When these objec- tions were satisfactorily an- swered, the ABA altered its position in 1976, thereby stripping the last vestige of respectability from the op- position. "The second source of op- position comes from ex- treme right-wing groups, whose arguments reflect strong hints of racism and anti-Semitism. They at- tempt to hide behind legalisms such as 'states rights,' but their most effec- tive approach has been to misrepresent the treaty and play upon the fears of their followers. "The rationale for the Genocide Convention emerged from the need to punish the Nazis who had conducted the policy of de- liberate and systematic an- nihilation of the Jews and others. At their trials before the Nuremberg Tribunals, many Nazis claimed that their actions had not been against the law in Germany and were not punishable in international law. "The Tribunals took the position that these crimes were beyond their jurisdiction, as they” not directly relate to the planning and waging of aggressive war. "In rejecting this reason- ing, President Harry Tru- man stated that there were certain crimes against hu- manity that must be punished whether or not they were sanctioned by domestic law. These crimes include persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds. "The effort to codify these `crimes against humanity' in international law was led by Raphael Lemkin, a lawyer from Warsaw who lost over 70 relatives in the Holocaust. Lemkin coined the phrase 'genocide' from the Greek word genos (race) and the Latin word tide (to kill). "Lemkin convinced the U.S. government to play an active role on this issue at the UN and to sponsor the effort that resulted in UN Resolution 96 (I), which de- clared 'that genocide is a crime under international law which the civilized world condemns and for the commission of which prin- cipals and accomplices are punishable. The UN Gen- eral Assembly adopted it on Dec. 11, 1946. "The UN resolution set the stage for the adoption of the Genocide Conven- tion on Dec. 9, 1948. Again, the U.S. played the major role in drafting and sponsoring the con- vention. "It attempts to prevent the destruction of any na- tional, ethnic, racial or reli- gious group by defining genocide, outlawing it, and establishing procedures for trying and punishing vio- lators. "The U.S. signed the con- vention two days after it was unanimously approved by the General Assembly. "President Truman sub- mitted the treaty to the Se- nate in June 1949 and urged its speedy passage. A spe- cially constituted subcom- mittee of the Foreign Rela- tions Committee held hear- ings and recommended Se- nate approval, with 'reser- vations' clarifying poten- tially ambiguous phrases. These 'reservations' have always been considered when the issue has come be- fore the Senate. "Powerful oppositior caused the treaty to lan- guish throughout the 1950s. "While Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson gave half-hearted support to the treaty, it was Richard Nixon who, on Feb. 17, 1970, became the first President since Truman actively to urge Senate ratification. "Four times thereafter, the committee endorsed the treaty. The successful oppo- sition was led by Sam Ervin (D-N.C.), who based his arguments on a strict con- struction of the Constitu- tion. "The Carter Administra- tion's strong support for human rights and for the Genocide Convention, Er- vin's retirement, the ABA's changed stance, and the recommendations of Car- ter's Commission on the Holocaust all held out the promise that the treaty might be passed in the late 1970s. But it has still never come to a vote. "The Percy-Pell- Proxmire initiative is based on the conviction that it is essential for the ,U.S., through ratification of the convention, to reaffirm its support for international law. Failure to ratify has undermined the effective- ness of our national human rights advocacy." Study: PLO Exaggerates Its International Success LONDON (JTA) — A study' of the international status won recently by the Palestine Liberation Organization concludes that the PLO's claims of success are exaggerated and that "the substance of its re- lations with individual states is far more compli- cated than the PLO indi- cates. The study by the Institute of Jewish Affairs, (IJA), re- search arm of the World Jewish Congress, concedes that the PLO's campaign for worldwide diplomatic recognition has had some success "in spite of its un- changed national covenant and the continued militant statements of its leaders." However, the PLO's suc- cesses in the Soviet Union, Greece and Japan are far less substantial when analyzed in the context of these states foreign policies, the IJA -says. Commenting on the Soviet Union's recent an- nouncement that it was giving the PLO's Moscow office full diplomatic status, the institute wrote: "Direct negotiations with Brezhnev for a man like PLO Chief Yasir Arafat, who does not represent a state and who was therefore received only by the unoffi- cial Soviet committee of sol- idarity with Asian and Afri- can countries . . . certainly represents an upgrading. The study also noted that "it is in the USSR's interest to make the PLO too inde- pendent since it sees the PLO as a means of influenc- ing Arab states and their leaders. The PLO also walks such a tightrope that it can easily offend the Soviet Union. "The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, for exam- ple; created great difficul- ties for the PLO with its strong Moslem leanings. Fatah, the largest of the PLO's constituent groups, is predominantly Moslem." Danger levels man and brute.