"We must shorten the distance between the heart and the deed. To live an idea, not only talk about it or feel it."Raphael Lemkin
Tracing an Idea into Law
The Post-Genocide Reconciliation Project studies principles of reconciliation, lessons of accountability, and human dignity. It focuses on the Armenian, Kosovar, and Rwandan genocides and draws insights from other historical genocides to create a toolkit for peacebuilding and human rights work today.
Additional Resources Coming Soon.
The Westphalian Sovereignty Principle of international law requires that either the state punishes itself for crimes against its own people, or the state is not punished at all. This important principle is later enshrined in the UN Charter, Chapter 1, Article 2.
Born to a Polish Jewish family and a natural polyglot, Raphael Lemkin later becomes a lawyer and coins the term genocide.
Permits prosecutions for breaching the established customs among civilized peoples, the laws of humanity and the demands of public conscience.
An estimated one million Armenians perish by 1918, while hundreds of thousands became homeless and stateless refugees.
Joint declaration by Britain, France, and Russia vowing to hold all members of the Ottoman government personally liable for crimes against humanity. This marks the first time the phrase crime against humanity enters into international publication. It leaves the question of who administers punishment unresolved because the law itself does not yet exist.
“The Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the war, and the failure to act against Turkey is to condone it because the failure to deal radically with the Turkish horror means that all talk of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievous nonsense; and because when we now refuse to war with Turkey we show that our announcement that we meant to make the world safe for democracy was insincere claptrap.”
Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. President (1901-1909)
Attempts to try Turkish leaders entered into post-WWI peace negotiations at Paris Peace Conference.
After learning of Pasha's assassination, Lemkin had two major thoughts: (1) impunity for mass murder must end; and (2) that without accountability within justice systems, there is a danger of the pendulum swinging too far towards vigilante justice without accountability. Upon graduation, Lemkin begins working as a prosecutor.
In his spare time while working as a prosecutor, Lemkin begins first drafts of a paper arguing for an international law enabling governments to hold accountable those who annihilate others based on religious beliefs, nationality, or ethnic group. Links barbarity and vandalism because a word capturing the atrocities of what happened in the past does not yet exist.
Lemkin's draft paper proposing an international law stopping the targeted destruction of ethnic, national, and religious groups is presented. Links barbarity and vandalism, but lacks a word to capture the ideas. His ideas are not taken seriously.
“Our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations in readiness with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of the Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”
Adolph Hitler
“The whole of Europe has been wrecked and trampled down by the mechanical weapons and barbaric fury of the Nazis. As his armies advance, whole districts are exterminated. We are in the presence of a crime without a name.”
Winston Churchill BBC broadcast regarding his meeting with U.S. President Roosevelt.
Listen to the audio recording here. The transcript is available here.
Lemkin lobbies politicians to take action against the Nazis and raises awareness among the general public to pressure U.S. foreign policy. Forty-nine of his family members are killed in the Holocaust.
Lemkin combines the Greek morpheme geno (meaning race or tribe) with the Latin morpheme cide (meaning killing). He publishes Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress and titles chapter 9: Genocide. This is the first time the word genocide appears in print.
Signed by France, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and the United States establishing the International Military Tribunal. Article 6(c) of the London Agreement states crime against humanity includes: murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.
Annexed to the London Agreement detailing the legal framework for the International Military Tribunal and crimes that could be tried: There was, until the Nuremberg Charter in 1945, no international criminal law to punish the political and military leaders of sovereign states for the mass murder of their own citizens. (An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Now Remembers the Armenians by Geoffrey Robertson, page 16.)
The Nuremberg Indictment is the first document officially mentioning genocide in the international legal setting. The indictment states all 24 defendants conducted deliberate and systematic genocide, viz., the extermination of racial and national groups, against the civilian populations of certain occupied territories.
Read the full text here.
Nineteen Nazi defendants convicted of crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. There is no mention of genocide in the final ruling as the crime itself did not yet exist.
In 1946, the UN recognizes genocide as an international crime. It unanimously passes a resolution condemning genocide as the denial of the rights of existence of entire human groups, that shocks the conscience of mankind, and is contrary to moral law and the spirit and aims of the United Nations. The Resolution tasks a committee with drafting a UN treaty banning the crime of genocide. If the measure passes the General Assembly and is ratified by two-thirds of UN member states (20 countries at the time), genocide would become international law.
The UN General Assembly votes unanimously on the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide measure. This is the first human rights treaty adopted by the UN.
The second human rights treaty adopted by the UN.
Read the full text here.
The word Genocide becomes law.
Read the full text here.
Read the full text here.
The foundational treaty establishing the International Criminal Court. It defines jurisdiction over international crimes: Genocide (Article 6); Crimes Against Humanity (Article 7); War Crimes (Article 8); and Crimes of Aggression (2010 Amendment).
Read the full text here.
Genocide becomes a prosecutable offense under international criminal law.
Over a period of just 100 days, an estimated 800,000 Tutsis are killed. The international community fails to respond.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was tasked with prosecuting individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes as a result of the genocide against the Tutsis. This Tribunal found rape as a means of perpetrating genocide.
Jean-Paul Akayesu was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on 2 September 1998.
Genocide listed as one of four crimes under the Rome Statute.
Following the atrocities in the Balkans and Rwanda, this doctrine reinforces the international community's commitment to prevent and stop genocide and mass atrocities.
Read more about the doctrine here.
On 21 January 2021, the U.S. Secretary of State determines that the Chinese Communist Party is committing genocide against the Uyghurs. The genocide continues to this day.
Read the determination here.
Currently, 153 nations have ratified the Genocide Convention. The UN annually commemorates the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime on December 9th.