Of the Etymology and Legal Ideas in the
Creation & Implementation of the Genocide Convention
“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
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1948 Peace Treaties of Westphalia
Ended the Thirty Years’ War
The Westphalian Sovereignty Principle of international law requires either the state punishes itself for crimes against its own people or not punished at all
Enshrined in the UN Charter, Chapter 1, Article 2
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June 24, 1900 Raphael Lemkin Born
In present-day Belarus
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1899 and 1907 Hague Convention of 1907
Permits prosecutions for breaching “the established customs among civilized peoples, the laws of humanity and the demands of public conscience.”
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1914 - 1918 World War I
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1915 - 1916 The Dardanelles Campaign
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1915 - 1917 The Armenian Genocide
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May 1915 Crimes against Humanity
Joint declaration by Britain, France, and Russia vowing to hold all members of Ottoman government personally liable for “crimes against humanity.” This marks first time “crime against humanity” raised, but leaves question of who administers punishment left unresolved because international criminal law did not yet exist.
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1918 Armenian Massacre
“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)
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1920 League of Nations
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1933 Madrid Conference
Lemkin presents draft paper proposing for an international law trying to stop targeted destruction of ethnic, national, and religious groups. Links “barbarity” and “vandalism,” but lacks word to capture.
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“Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”
“[O]ur 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
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April 18, 1941 Raphael Lemkin arrives in Seattle
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August 24, 1941 “We are in the presence of a crime without a name”
“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 Roosevelt
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1942 Raphael Lemkin begins working for U.S. government
- Lemkin lobbies politicians to take action against the Nazis and raises awareness among general public to pressure U.S. foreign policy.
- Forty-nine of his family members killed.
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1944 “Genocide” Coined
- Lemkin Combines Greek morpheme “geno” (meaning “race” or “tribe”) with the Latin morpheme “cide” (meaning “killing”).
- Lemkin publishes Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress (Chapter 9 entitled, “Genocide”). This is the first time the word “genocide” appears in print.
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August 1945 London Agreement —first definition of “crime against humanity”
- Article 6(c): “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.”
- Signed by France, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and the United States establishing the International Military Tribunal
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1945 Nuremberg Charter
- Annexed to London Agreement detailing 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” (Robertson, p. 16)
Quoted from Inconvenient Genocide.
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October 1945 Nuremberg Indictment
- First official mention of “genocide” in international legal setting, stating all 24 defendants “conducted deliberate and systematic genocide, viz., the extermination of racial and national groups, against the civilian populations of certain occupied territories.”
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May 1946 Nuremberg Trial begins
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October 1, 1946 Nuremberg Trial Verdicts
- 19 Nazi defendants convicted of crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
- No mention of genocide.
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December 11, 1946 UN General Assembly Resolution 96(I)
- Recognizes genocide as an international crime
- Unanimously passes resolution condemning genocide as “the denial of the rights of existence of entire human groups,” “shocks the conscience of mankind,” and “contrary to moral law and the spirit and aims of the United Nations.”
- Resolution tasked committee with drafting UN treaty banning crime of genocide
- If the measure passed the General Assembly and ratified by two-thirds of UN member states (20 countries), it would become international law.
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December 9, 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted (Resolution 260(III))
- General Assembly votes on the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide measure
- Unanimous vote (55 delegates voting yes and none voting no)
- Marks first time that the UN adopts a human rights treaty
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December 10, 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
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October 16, 1950 UN Convention on Genocide becomes International Law
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January 12, 1951 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide enters into force
- 1951-1990s marks slow ratification of the treaty around the world against Cold War tensions
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August 28, 1959 Raphael Lemkin passes away in New York
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1975 - 1979 Cambodian Genocide
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July 1988 The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
- Foundational Treaty establishing International Criminal Court
- Defines jurisdiction over international crimes: Genocide (Article 6); Crimes Against Humanity (Article 7); War Crimes (Article 8); and Crimes of Aggression (2010 Amendment)
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1992 - 1995 Bosnian War and Srebrenica Genocide
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1993 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia established
- Genocide becomes prosecutable offense under international criminal law
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1994 Rwandan Genocide
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1994 UN Security Council creates International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
- Tasked with prosecuting individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes
- The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found rape as a means of perpetrating genocide
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1997 - 1998 First trial/verdict for genocide before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
- Jean-Paul Akayesu found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity on September 2, 1998.
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1998 - 1999 Kosovo War
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July 1, 2002 International Criminal Court enters into force in Rome
- Genocide one of four crimes under the Rome Statute
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Present Day 21st Century Developments
- 153 nations have ratified the Genocide
- UN 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