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Can genocide be committed during peacetime as well as during war?

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Railway tracks lead to the brick entrance building and guard tower of Auschwitz Birkenau concentration camp near Oswiecim, Poland. — Genocide Freight train tracks leading to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Nazi Germany's largest concentration camp, near Oświęcim, Poland.

Yes, genocide can be committed during both peacetime and wartime.

While the concept of genocide is often associated with the atrocities of war, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide explicitly defines genocide as an international crime "whether committed in time of peace or in time of war."1

This distinction was a significant development in international law. Early legal frameworks, such as the charter of the Nürnberg tribunal, limited the jurisdiction over "crimes against humanity" to acts committed in conjunction with a crime against interstate peace—a requirement often referred to as the "war-nexus." The Genocide Convention successfully disentangled the crime from this requirement, ensuring that the prohibition against the deliberate destruction of national, ethnical, racial, or religious groups applies regardless of whether a state is engaged in armed conflict.12