This paper critically examines the efficacy of the United Nations (UN) Genocide Convention of 1948 and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine in preventing and punishing genocide, and takes a critical look at both their conceptual brilliance and operational weaknesses. Despite a huge moral and symbolic authority within international law, the convention as well as the R2P doctrine have been rather ineffective in curbing genocidal violence and this study identifies the four core causes of this inefficiency – The evidentiary standard of proving specific intent (dolus specialis) of genocidal violence, the primacy of state sovereignty which complicates intervention, the absence of dedicated enforcement mechanisms and the politicization of genocide recognition. The paper argues that the failure to protect doesn’t lie in normative intent but instead in structural and systemic inabilities to translate normative aspirations into actual prevention and punishment. The study ultimately states, that although the United nations has developed a vigorous normative system of genocide prevention, its actualization and implementation potential continues to be severely limited because of a variety of reasons and concludes that closing the gap between normative ideals and successful operationalisation requires not only a strengthening of institutional provisions and enforcement mechanisms, but also a radical change in the political will and accountability of the UN member states.