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and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbiaand Montenegro, paragraphs 155-179).’Explanation of ground of appeal 11Obligation to prevent genocide128. The UN considered in Resolution 96 (1) of 11 December 1946 that genocide is a crime underinternational law, contrary to the spirit and the purposes of the United Nations andcondemned by the civilized world.129. Article 1 of the Genocide Convention reads:‘The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or intime of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and topunish.’The determination by the District Court that the fundamental principle of the GenocideConvention was the penalization of genocide is erroneous given the text of Article 1 of theGenocide Convention. The prevention of genocide is at least as important, if not moreimportant than its punishment. Punishing genocide does not return lost lives to an individualor a group of victims of genocide whereas they do retain their lives if genocide is prevented.The Genocide Convention lists in that connection first the prevention and then thepunishment. The ruling of the ICJ in The Hague of 26 February 2007 (Bosnia-Herzegovina/Serbia and Montenegro) is also of importance here. The Association et al. willdeal further with that ruling below. Before that the Association et al. notes by way ofillustration that also here the ICJ under legal consideration 161 of its ruling refers to anAdvisory Opinion of the ICJ from 1951, in which was again established that:‘The Convention was manifestly adopted for a purely humanitarian and civilizing purpose(….) it is indeed difficult to imagine a convention that might have this dual character to agreater degree, since its object on the one hand is to safeguard the very existence ofcertain human groups and on the other to confirm and endorse the most elementaryprinciples of morality.’© Van Diepen Van der Kroef Advocaten page 57 of 99