Senate Panel Backs Genocide Treaty, With Two Restrictions

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday recommended approval of the United Nations treaty outlawing genocide, stalled in the Senate for 36 years, but two key restrictions were attached that Democrats charged dilute the purpose of the document.

Under provisions negotiated by committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), the treaty’s application would be limited and the United States could refuse to be a party to genocide proceedings before the World Court.

Both provisions passed on a vote of 9 to 8, with all Republicans on the panel except Sen. Charles McC. Mathias of Maryland voting in favor. Democratic Sen. Edward Zorinsky of Nebraska, who was not present, voted by proxy in favor of the restrictions, assuring their adoption.

In addition, several Democrats pressed their objections by voting “present” as the committee sent the treaty to the full Senate on a 10-0 vote.

One reservation adopted Tuesday requires the “specific consent” of the United States before a dispute to which it is a party can be submitted to the World Court. The other says that “acts in the course of armed conflicts committed without the specific intent” of genocide against a particular group “are not sufficient to constitute genocide.”

Arguments To and Fro

Adopting the provisions “really strips the meaning of this treaty of any significance,” Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) asserted. He said it aligns the United States with 19 other nations--including the Soviet Union and several Eastern Bloc countries--that also have attached significant reservations to the agreement.

However, Lugar argued that the treaty could not pass the Senate without the provisions, which do not represent changes in the document itself but rather the terms by which the United States intends to adhere to it.

It was not clear when the full Senate will vote on the treaty.

Adopted unanimously by the United Nations in late 1948 in response to the Nazi extermination of millions of Jews, Gypsies and others during World War II, the treaty defines genocide as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” President Reagan has urged support of the treaty, which has been ratified by 96 nations.

Some hard-line Senate conservatives, notably Helms, for years have threatened filibusters to block ratification, objecting that if adopted without reservation the treaty could be used to interfere with the U.S. judicial system. Treaty opponents also argued that the treaty could be used to claim that Israel was committing genocide against the Palestinians in the Middle East.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), a committee member, lamented the possibility that “because there are two, three, or five or 10 people on the floor of the Senate who do not like this, we are not going to furnish a product.”

The unamended treaty “would not solve all the problems of the world, but at least provide a forum,” said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), another committee member.