Honorable Mr. President,

Respectable guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The prehistory of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted by the UN on December 9, 1948 is related to the most tragic page in the history of the Armenian people. It was the absence of condemnation and elimination of consequences of the Armenian Genocide that made the young philologist Rafael Lemkin in 1921 ask his professor why the Armenians did not have the masterminds of the Armenian Calamity arrested. To that question the professor replied that there was no law under which they could be arrested. It was this answer that forced Lemkin to drop philology and get immersed in international law dedicating his life to the study of crimes against humanity, which, among others, paved the way for the adoption of the 1948 Convention.

In the future great efforts were put for the elimination of the consequences of the Holocaust, as it was almost not possible to prevent its calamity. The ensuing history of 60 years, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur and other tragedies demonstrated that all good-will is not enough to root out such genocidal expressions, as the hatred and hostility propagated on national, ethnical, racial and religious grounds.

Indeed, the international community has registered some progress in this area by the adoption of Rome Statute and the establishment of tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia. In this period several genocide research centers were founded, studies have been carried out in various research establishments and universities, big amount of literature has been and is being published, symposiums and conferences are organized. The scholars who have come together here in this conference in Yerevan from different corners of the world have had their important contribution to this cause. Nevertheless, the recurrence of genocide or its threat is not a turned page for the humanity.

The denials of genocides, the impunity pave the way for the repetition of new crimes against humanity. Independent of geopolitical or other interests the international community should stand together in the condemnation of genocide, in its prevention. It is due to the absence of this unanimity that humanity witnesses new attempts to committing genocides.

It was in such a conference in Madrid in 1933 that Rafael Lemkin urged that if the international community were ever to prevent mass slaughter of the kind the Armenians had suffered, the world’s states would have to unite to exclude that phenomenon. This goal is actual and I think you, academicians gathered here today, are motivated by it.

During the two-day conference you will probably be able to propose such approaches that would facilitate the ongoing struggle in the prevention, condemnation and elimination of the consequences of genocide.

The organization and hosting of this international conference in Armenia is symbolic. I would like to greet and thank the respected scholars and experts coming from France, Argentina, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Hungary, USA, Canada, Australia, Lebanon, Egypt, Israel and Japan.

Dear guests,

The President of the Republic of Armenia, Mr. Serzh Sargsyan is invited to deliver the opening speech of the conference.

Please, Mr. President!