In addition to genocide itself, which is defined in article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, article III describes four forms of participation in the crime: conspiracy, direct and public incitement, attempt and complicity. These are the ‘other acts’ mentioned in articles IV, V, VI, VII, VIII and IX. With its reference to ‘genocide’ in the first paragraph of article III, the Convention establishes that the four subsequent ‘other acts’ are not, strictly speaking, ‘genocide’. Arguably, they are lesser crimes, and therefore do not bear the same stigma that is attached to the crime of genocide. Lawyers often refer to them as forms of ‘secondary’ liability, and domestic legal systems usually attach penalties to them that are significantly reduced from those for the principal offender. Yet complicity in genocide should hardly be viewed as being less serious than genocide itself. The accomplice may well be the leader who gives the order to commit genocide, while the ‘principal’ offender is the lowly subordinate who carries out the instructions. In this scenario, the guilt of the accomplice is really superior to that of the principal offender.

Most of the acts defined in article III – incitement, conspiracy and attempt – are ‘inchoate’ or incomplete crimes, and can be committed even if the principal offence itself never takes place. For example, direct and public incitement to commit genocide may be perpetrated even if nobody is actually incited to act.