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124-428: Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin , who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by means such as "the disintegration of [its] political and social institutions, of [its] culture , language , national feelings, religion , and [its] economic existence". During

248-648: A French-language work, La réglementation des paiements internationaux , regarding international trade law (1939). He left Warsaw on 6 September 1939 and made his way north-east towards Wolkowysk . He was caught between the invaders, the Germans in the west, and the Soviets who then approached from the east. Poland's independence was extinguished by terms of the pact between Stalin and Hitler . He barely evaded German capture, and traveled through Lithuania to reach Sweden by early spring of 1940. There he lectured at

372-436: A German court. Makarewicz, a national-conservative who believed that Jews and Ukrainians should be expelled from Poland if they refused to assimilate, answered that the doctrine of state sovereignty gave governments the right to conduct internal affairs as they saw fit: "Consider the case of a farmer who owns a flock of chickens. He kills them, and this is his business. If you interfere, you are trespassing." Lemkin replied, "But

496-422: A commitment to protect against genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. This document is not binding legal agreement, but rather reaffirms all states' responsibility to protect their own populations from atrocity crimes. It additionally holds the international community responsible for holding other states' accountable for their populations. In accordance with Chapters VI, VII, and VIII of

620-457: A form of genocide. Pioneers of research into settler colonialism such as Patrick Wolfe spelled out the genocidal logic of settler projects, prompting a rethinking of colonialism. Many genocide scholars are concerned both with objective study of the topic, and obtaining insights that will help prevent future genocides. The definition of genocide generates controversy whenever a new case arises and debate erupts as to whether or not it qualifies as

744-533: A genocide. Sociologist Martin Shaw writes, “Few ideas are as important in public debate, but in few cases are the meaning and scope of a key idea less clearly agreed.” Some scholars and activists use the Genocide Convention definition. Others prefer narrower definitions that indicate genocide is rare in human history, reducing genocide to mass killing or distinguishing it from other types of violence by

868-442: A group can be targeted before triggering the Genocide Convention. The two main approaches to intent are the purposive approach, where the perpetrator expressly wants to destroy the group, and the knowledge-based approach, where the perpetrator understands that destruction of the protected group will result from his actions. Intent is the most difficult aspect for prosecutors to prove; the perpetrators often claim that they merely sought

992-408: A group's language, culture, or way of life—was part of Raphael Lemkin 's original concept, and its proponents in the 1940s argued that it, along with physical genocide, were two mechanisms aiming at the same goal: destruction of the targeted group. Because cultural genocide clearly applied to some colonial and assimilationist policies, several states with overseas colonies threatened to refuse to ratify

1116-475: A large farm near Wolkowysk and was one of three children born to Józef Lemkin and Bella née Pomeranz. His father was a farmer and his mother an intellectual, painter, linguist, and philosophy student with a large collection of books on literature and history. Lemkin and his two brothers (Eliasz and Samuel) were homeschooled by their mother. As a youth, Lemkin was fascinated by the subject of atrocities and would often question his mother about such events as

1240-604: A lesser or greater extent from the convention. The convention's definition of genocide was adopted verbatim by the ad hoc international criminal tribunals and by the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). The crime of genocide also exists in customary international law and is therefore prohibited for non-signatories. During the Cold War , genocide remained at

1364-534: A means of committing genocide as well as to hold members of media responsible for broadcasts as a tool of genocide. The ICTR's last trial judgement was on December 20, 2012 and is now working on appeals only. Since it opened in 1995, of the 93 individuals have been indicted by the ICTR, 62 have been found guilty of international humanitarian crimes and sentenced, 10 have been referred to national jurisdictions, 2 have died prior to verdicts, 3 fugitives have been referred to

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1488-553: A nearby forest. During the fighting, artillery fire destroyed their home and German troops seized their crops, horses and livestock. Lemkin's brother Samuel eventually died of pneumonia and malnutrition while the family remained in the forest. After graduating from a local trade school in Białystok Lemkin began the study of linguistics at the Jan Kazimierz University of Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine ). He

1612-504: A political or military enemy, thus excluding them from consideration. Most civilian killings in the twentieth century were not from genocide, which only applies to select cases. Alternative terms have been coined to describe processes left outside narrower definitions of genocide. Ethnic cleansing —the forced expulsion of a population from a given territory—has achieved widespread currency, although many scholars recognize that it frequently overlaps with genocide, even where Lemkin's definition

1736-798: A presentation to the Legal Council of the League of Nations conference on international criminal law in Madrid , for which he prepared an essay on the Crime of Barbarity as a crime against international law. In 1934 Lemkin, under pressure from the Polish Foreign Minister for comments made at the Madrid conference, resigned his position and became a private solicitor in Warsaw. While in Warsaw, Lemkin attended numerous lectures organized by

1860-469: A similar fate as they inflict on their victims. Despite perpetrators' utilitarian goals, ideological factors are necessary to explain why genocide seems to be a desirable solution to the identified security problem. Noncombatants are harmed because of the collective guilt ascribed to an entire people—defined according to race but targeted because of its supposed security threat. Other motives for genocide have included theft, land grabbing , and revenge. War

1984-679: A special adviser on foreign affairs to the War Department, largely due to his expertise in international law . In November 1944, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published Axis Rule in Occupied Europe . This book included an extensive legal analysis of German rule in countries occupied by Nazi Germany during the course of World War II , along with the definition of the term genocide . Lemkin's idea of genocide as an offence against international law

2108-535: A trivial characteristic. He saw genocide as an inherently colonial process, and in his later writings analyzed what he described as the colonial genocides occurring within European overseas territories as well as the Soviet and Nazi empires. Furthermore, his definition of genocidal acts, which was to replace the national pattern of the victim with that of the perpetrator, was much broader than the five types enumerated in

2232-408: A value judgement as it is widely considered to be the epitome of human evil . In the past, violence that could be labeled genocide was sometimes celebrated —although it always had its critics. The idea that genocide sits on top of a hierarchy of atrocity crimes —that it is worse than crimes against humanity or war crimes —is controversial among scholars and it suggests that the protection of groups

2356-582: A way to develop tolerance and respect for human rights, the charge of genocide often leads to increased cohesion among the targeted people—in some cases, it has been incorporated into national identity —and stokes enmity towards the group blamed for the crime, reducing the chance of reconciliation and increasing the risk of future occurrence of genocide. Some genocides are commemorated in memorials or museums. Raphael Lemkin Raphael Lemkin ( Polish : Rafał Lemkin ; 24 June 1900 – 28 August 1959)

2480-408: A wide range of acts and is often seen as broader than the other three mass atrocity crimes. While crimes against humanity can include many acts that also constitute war crimes, genocide, or ethnic cleansing, it bears distinguishing characteristics. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity may be committed in times of war or peace and can only be committed against civilian populations. Unlike genocide,

2604-442: Is a common misconception that genocide necessarily involves mass killing; indeed, it may occur without a single person being killed. Forced displacement is a common feature of many genocides, with the victims often transported to another location where their destruction is easier for the perpetrators. In some cases, victims are transported to sites where they are killed or deprived of the necessities of life. People are often killed by

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2728-571: Is a doctrine that emerged around 2000, in the aftermath of several genocides around the world, that seeks to balance state sovereignty with the need for international intervention to prevent genocide. However, disagreements in the United Nations Security Council and lack of political will have hampered the implementation of this doctrine. Although military intervention to halt genocide has been credited with reducing violence in some cases, it remains deeply controversial and

2852-551: Is an international court established by the UN Security Council to prosecute individuals of genocide and other mass atrocity crimes committed in Rwanda and neighboring states between January 1, 1994 and December 31, 1994. The ICTR is the first international tribunal to deliver verdicts of genocide and the first to interpret 1948 Genocide Convention's definition of genocide. It is also the first tribunal to define rape as

2976-464: Is considered likely to occur, the accuracy of these predictions are not known and there is no scholarly consensus over evidence-based genocide prevention strategies. Intervention to prevent genocide has often been considered a failure because most countries prioritize business, trade, and diplomatic relationships: as a consequence, "the usual powerful actors continue to use violence against vulnerable populations with impunity". Responsibility to protect

3100-420: Is dependent on their position early in the demographic transition . Because genocide is often perceived as the "crime of crimes", it grabs attention more effectively than other violations of international law. Consequently, victims of atrocities often label their suffering genocide as an attempt to gain attention to their plight and attract foreign intervention. Although remembering genocide is often perceived as

3224-597: Is for state-sponsored atrocities to be carried out in secrecy by paramilitary groups, offering the benefit of plausible deniability while widening complicity in the atrocities. The leaders who organize genocide usually believe that their actions were justified and regret nothing. How ordinary people can become involved in extraordinary violence under circumstances of acute conflict is poorly understood. The foot soldiers of genocide (as opposed to its organizers) are not demographically or psychologically aberrant. People who commit crimes during genocide are rarely true believers in

3348-839: Is forbidden. On 15 September 2018 the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation (www.ucclf.ca) and its supporters in the US unveiled the world's first Ukrainian/English/Hebrew/Yiddish plaque honouring Lemkin for his recognition of the tragic famine of 1932–1933 in the Soviet Union, the Holodomor , at the Ukrainian Institute of America, in New York City, marking the 75th anniversary of Lemkin's address, "Soviet Genocide in

3472-461: Is heavily influenced by the Holocaust as its archetype and is conceived as innocent victims targeted because of racism rather than for any political reason. Genocide is not an end of itself, but a means to another end—often chosen by perpetrators after other options failed. Most are ultimately caused by its perpetrators perceiving an existential threat to their own existence, although this belief

3596-457: Is inherently connected to the modern state—thus to the rise of the West in the early modern era and its expansion outside Europe—and earlier conflicts cannot be described as genocide. Although all empires rely on violence, often extreme violence, to perpetuate their own existence, they also seek to preserve and rule the conquered rather than eradicate them. Although the desire to exploit populations

3720-502: Is more important than of individuals. We have been reproached for making no distinction between the innocent Armenians and the guilty : but that was utterly impossible in view of the fact that those who are innocent today might be guilty tomorrow. The concern for the safety of Turkey simply had to silence all other concerns. — Talaat Pasha in Berliner Tageblatt , 4 May 1916 The colloquial understanding of genocide

3844-420: Is not used. Other terms ending in -cide have proliferated for the destruction of particular types of groupings: democide (people by a government), eliticide (the elite of a targeted group), ethnocide (ethnic groups), gendercide (gendered groupings), politicide (political groups), classicide (social classes), and urbicide (the destruction of a particular locality). The word genocide inherently carries

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3968-472: Is often described as the single most important enabler of genocide providing the weaponry, ideological justification, polarization between allies and enemies, and cover for carrying out extreme violence. A large proportion of genocides occurred under the course of imperial expansion and power consolidation. Although genocide is typically organized around pre-existing identity boundaries, it has the outcome of strengthening them. Although many scholars have emphasized

4092-457: Is often intended to disrupt reproduction of the targeted group. Almost all genocides are brought to an end either by the military defeat of the perpetrators or the accomplishment of their aims. According to rational choice theory , it should be possible to intervene to prevent genocide by raising the costs of engaging in such violence relative to alternatives. Although there are a number of organizations that compile lists of states where genocide

4216-472: Is particularly common during settler-colonial consolidation. Men, particularly young adults, are disproportionately targeted for killing before other victims in order to stem resistance. Although diverse forms of sexual violence—ranging from rape, forced pregnancy, forced marriage, sexual slavery, mutilation, forced sterilization—can affect either males or females, women are more likely to face it. The combination of killing of men and sexual violence against women

4340-472: Is particularly likely in situations of imperial expansion and power consolidation. Therefore, it is usually associated with colonial empires and settler colonies , as well as with both world wars and repressive governments in the twentieth century. The colloquial understanding of genocide is heavily influenced by the Holocaust as its archetype and is conceived as innocent victims targeted for their ethnic identity rather than for any political reason. Genocide

4464-754: Is said to have considered Karim Azkoul in particular as an ally. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was formally presented and adopted on 9 December 1948. In 1951, Lemkin only partially achieved his goal when the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide came into force, after the 20th nation had ratified the treaty. Lemkin's broader concerns over genocide, as set out in his Axis Rule , also embraced what may be considered as non-physical, namely, psychological acts of genocide. The book also detailed

4588-421: Is significant overlap between ethnic cleansing and the previously mentioned acts. It can be tried as a crime against humanity or, specifically during armed conflict, a war crime. Its relationship with genocide is particularly complicated due to the overlap in the intent to target a particular "national, ethnical, racial or religious group." Ethnic cleansing is often discussed in tandem with genocide. For example,

4712-430: Is that the rain of my work fell on a fallow plain," he wrote, "only this rain was a mixture of the blood and tears of eight million innocent people throughout the world. Included also were the tears of my parents and my friends." Lemkin was not widely known until the 1990s, when international prosecutions of genocide began in response to atrocities in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and "genocide" began to be understood as

4836-529: Is usually exaggerated and can be entirely imagined. Particular threats to existing elites that have been correlated to genocide include both successful and attempted regime change via assassination, coups, revolutions, and civil wars . Most genocides were not planned long in advance, but emerged through a process of gradual radicalization , often escalating to genocide following resistance by those targeted. Genocide perpetrators often fear—usually irrationally—that if they do not commit atrocities, they will suffer

4960-425: Is usually illegal. Researcher Gregory H. Stanton found that calling crimes genocide rather than something else, such as ethnic cleansing, increased the chance of effective intervention. Perhaps for this reason, states are often reluctant to recognize crimes as genocide while they are taking place. Lemkin applied the concept of genocide to a wide variety of events throughout human history . He and other scholars date

5084-508: Is widely considered to be the epitome of human evil and often referred to as the "crime of crimes"; consequently, events are often denounced as genocide . Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide between 1941 and 1943. Lemkin's coinage combined the Greek word γένος ( genos , "race, people") with the Latin suffix -caedo ("act of killing"). He submitted

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5208-523: The Białystok pogrom ." In his writings, Lemkin demonstrated a belief central to his thinking throughout his life: the suffering of Jews in eastern Poland was part of a larger pattern of injustice and violence that stretched back through history and around the world. The Lemkin family farm was located in an area in which fighting between Russian and German troops occurred during World War I . The family buried their books and valuables before taking shelter in

5332-636: The Free Polish University , including the classes of Emil Stanisław Rappaport and Wacław Makowski  [ pl ] . In 1937, Lemkin was appointed a member of the Polish mission to the 4th Congress on Criminal Law in Paris , where he also introduced the possibility of defending peace through criminal law. Among the most important of his works of that period are a compendium of Polish criminal fiscal law, Prawo karne skarbowe (1938) and

5456-476: The Geneva Conventions . International humanitarian law encompasses a wide range of treatment that different categories of only protected persons are entitled to, such as the humane treatment of enemy civilians under belligerent military occupations and non-discriminatory medical care for the wounded and sick or minimum conditions of detention for prisoners of war. Conversely, acts that rise to

5580-560: The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals , and 2 indictments were withdrawn before their trials started. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. It can hear two types of cases: contentious and advisory. Contentious cases are legal disputes between states which can only be brought by states. The only mass atrocity crime that

5704-722: The Ottoman empire 's genocide of Armenians during World War I and was deeply disturbed by the absence of international provisions to charge Ottoman officials who carried out war crimes. Following the German invasion of Poland , Lemkin fled Europe and sought asylum in the United States , where he became an academic at Duke University . Lemkin coined genocide in 1943 or 1944 from two words: genos ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : γένος , 'family, clan, tribe, race, stock, kin') and -cide ( Latin : -cidium , 'killing'). The term

5828-669: The Paris Peace Conference of 1945, but his proposal was turned down. Lemkin presented a draft resolution for a Genocide Convention treaty to a number of countries, in an effort to persuade them to sponsor the resolution. With the support of the United States, the resolution was placed before the General Assembly for consideration. Among his supporters at the UN there were the delegates of Lebanon, and Lemkin

5952-512: The Sack of Carthage , Mongol invasions and conquests and the persecution of Huguenots . Lemkin apparently came across the concept of mass atrocities while, at the age of 12, reading Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz , in particular the passage where Nero threw Christians to the lions. About these stories, Lemkin wrote, "a line of blood led from the Roman arena through the gallows of France to

6076-482: The University of Stockholm . Curious about the manner of imposition of Nazi rule he started to gather Nazi decrees and ordinances, believing official documents often reflected underlying objectives without stating them explicitly. He spent much time in the central library of Stockholm, gathering, translating and analysing the documents he collected, looking for patterns of German behaviour. Lemkin's work led him to see

6200-548: The legal instrument used to prosecute defeated German leaders at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, atrocity crimes were only prosecutable by international justice if they were committed as part of an illegal war of aggression . The powers prosecuting the trial were unwilling to restrict a government's actions against its own citizens. In order to criminalize peacetime genocide, Lemkin brought his proposal to criminalize genocide to

6324-547: The 1933 Simele massacre . He became interested in war crimes upon learning about the 1921 trial of Soghomon Tehlirian for the assassination of Talaat Pasha . After reading about the 1921 assassination of Talat Pasha , the main perpetrator of the Armenian genocide, in Berlin by Soghomon Tehlirian , Lemkin asked Professor Juliusz Makarewicz  [ pl ] why Talat Pasha could not have been tried for his crimes in

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6448-605: The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide , the 1949 Geneva Conventions and their 1977 Additional Protocols , and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The jurisprudence of the International Criminal Court, ad hoc international criminal tribunals , and the International Court of Justice further define and enforce these laws. The term "crimes against humanity" has been applied to

6572-767: The 1970s and 1980s, as social science began to consider the phenomenon of genocide. Due to the occurrence of the Bosnian genocide , Rwandan genocide , and the Kosovo crisis , genocide studies exploded in the 1990s. In contrast to earlier researchers who took for granted the idea that liberal and democratic societies were less likely to commit genocide, revisionists associated with the International Network of Genocide Scholars emphasized how Western ideas led to genocide. The genocides of indigenous peoples as part of European colonialism were initially not recognized as

6696-701: The Additional Protocols, provide the most robust framing of the laws of armed conflict. In addition, the definition and interpretation of war crimes were developed by the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the International Criminal Court. Like crimes against humanity and genocide, it is also customary international law. While no one document codifies all war crimes,

6820-699: The Armenians are not chickens". His eventual conclusion was that "Sovereignty, I argued, cannot be conceived as the right to kill millions of innocent people". Lemkin then moved on to Heidelberg University in Germany to study philosophy, returning to Lwów to study law in 1926. During the 1920s Lemkin was involved in Zionist activities. He was a columnist in the Warsaw based Yiddish Zionist newspaper Tsienistishe velt (The Zionist world) . Some scholars think that his Zionism had an influence on his conception of

6944-501: The Balkans in the 1990s. It addresses crimes committed from 1991 to 2001 against members of various ethnic groups in the former Yugoslavia — Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo and Macedonia. This was the first war crimes court established by the UN as well as the first international war crimes tribunal since the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals. The tribunal was established by the UN Security Council, acting under Chapter VII of

7068-636: The Court. The ICC's jurisdiction is complementary to domestic courts. So if a perpetrator is tried at a national level court, the ICC does not intervene in the case. Prior to the publication of the Rome Statute and the formation of the International Criminal Court, violators of mass atrocity crimes would be brought to justice through international tribunals. Nuremberg was the first such example of these tribunals. Held as an International Military Tribunal (IMT) for

7192-797: The Geneva Conventions added more protected groups, including women, children, civilian medical personnel, and journalists. The term "ethnic cleansing" encompasses a broad range of unlawful actions with the intent of removing a group from a specific area. This may be done through non-violent acts, such as administrative regulations on movement and preventing access to medical care, education, or humanitarian aid. It can also be carried out through harassment and threats. Finally, ethnic cleansing can be carried out through violent measures including rape, torture, forced deportation, mass incarceration, killings, and attacks on political and cultural figures and sites. Much like other mass atrocity crimes, there

7316-452: The Genocide Convention. Despite the promise of never again and the international effort to outlaw genocide, it has continued to occur repeatedly into the twenty-first century. In the aftermath of genocide, common occurrences are the attempt to prosecute perpetrators through the legal system and obtain recognition and reparations for survivors, as well as reflection of the events in scholarship and culture, such as genocide museums . Except in

7440-471: The Genocide Convention. Lemkin considered genocide to have occurred since the beginning of human history and dated the efforts to criminalize it to the Spanish critics of colonial excesses Francisco de Vitoria and Bartolomé de Las Casas . The 1946 judgement against Arthur Greiser issued by a Polish court was the first legal verdict that mentioned the term, using Lemkin's original definition. According to

7564-452: The Holocaust ; The only members of Lemkin's family in Europe who survived the Holocaust were his brother, Elias, and his brother's wife and two sons, who had been sent to a Soviet forced labor camp . Lemkin did however successfully help his brother and family to emigrate to Montreal , Quebec, Canada in 1948. After arriving in the United States, at the invitation of McDermott, Lemkin joined

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7688-457: The Holocaust, involved such large-scale logistics that it reinforced the impression that genocide was the result of civilization drifting off course and required both the "weapons and infrastructure of the modern state and the radical ambitions of the modern man". Scientific racism and nationalism were common ideological drivers of many twentieth century genocides. After the horrors of World War II , world leaders attempted to proscribe genocide via

7812-482: The ICC (through ratification of the Rome Statute or otherwise) and to situations referred to it by the UN Security Council. Despite the referral power of the Security Council, the Court itself is not officially affiliated with the United Nations. In order for the International Criminal Court to take a case, the state must be a signed member of the Rome Statute, as this puts a country within the jurisdiction of

7936-484: The ICJ has jurisdiction over is genocide. Its jurisdiction was established explicitly in the Genocide Convention. Unlike the tribunals discussed above, the ICJ cannot determine individual criminal responsibility. It can clarify and interpret the Genocide Convention as well as hold states accountable for the commission or the failure to prevent or punish genocide. At the 2005 World Summit, the United Nations member states made

8060-526: The International Court of Justice determined that most of the acts committed in Bosnia by Serb forces were "ethnic cleansing," but fell short of genocide. What distinguishes ethnic cleansing from genocide is intent. The purpose that drives ethnic cleansing is to render a specific region homogeneous through the often violent expulsion of a minority group as opposed to its destruction. So while

8184-506: The Nazis, Nuremberg became the first ever trial in which crimes against humanity had been held as a charge (they could not be charged with the crime of genocide, as it did not exist at the time). Of the 24 Nazi officials charged, 16 of them were found guilty of crimes against humanity. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is the United Nations court established in 1993 to prosecute mass atrocity crimes committed in

8308-440: The Rome Statute is the most recent consensus. It defines war crimes as "grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions" and lists "any of the following acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention" The United Nations Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes recognizes that the 1949 Geneva Conference protects four groups of people in armed conflict: The 1977 Additional Protocols of

8432-501: The Soviet Union) secured changes in an attempt to make the convention unenforceable and applicable to their geopolitical rivals ' actions but not their own. Few formerly colonized countries were represented and "most states had no interest in empowering their victims– past, present, and future". The result severely diluted Lemkin's original concept; he privately considered it a failure. Lemkin's anti-colonial conception of genocide

8556-652: The UN Charter. Since its inception, the ICTY has made precedent-setting decisions on mass atrocity crimes, including the precept that an individual's position does not protect them from prosecution. It has also set the precedent for individualized guilt in order to protect entire communities from being labelled "collectively responsible." It has held that the mass murder at Srebrenica was genocide as defined by international law. The ICTY has indicted over 160 individuals. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)

8680-585: The Ukraine". ...when Raphael Lemkin coined the word genocide in 1944 he cited the 1915 annihilation of Armenians as a seminal example of genocide " Lemkin's interest in the subject dates to his days as a student at Lvov University, when he intently followed attempts to prosecute the perpetration of the massacres of the Armenians Atrocity crimes Crimes of aggression are considered by some to be mass atrocity crimes and they are included in

8804-494: The acts need not be targeted against a specific group. Crimes against humanity have not been codified under a dedicated international treaty . The International Law Commission recently submitted a draft convention to the United Nations General Assembly that would include provisions prohibiting, punishing, and defining crimes against humanity. Despite not being the subject of a dedicated treaty,

8928-431: The attack: At its most essential, "genocide" is acts committed with the intent to destroy a particular group. This destruction may be achieved by both fatal and non-fatal acts, ranging from slavery to rape and from mass killings to forced sterilizations. Like crimes against humanity, genocide can occur in times of peace or war. Genocide is characterized, in large part, by its specific intent requirement. While many of

9052-483: The case of the Holocaust , few genocide victims receive any reparations despite the trend of requiring such reparations in international and municipal law. The perpetrators and their supporters often deny the genocide and reject responsibility for the harms suffered by victims. Efforts to achieve justice and reconciliation are common in postgenocide situations, but are necessarily incomplete and inadequate. The effects of genocide on societies are under-researched. Much of

9176-482: The constitutive acts of genocide are captured by the other atrocity crimes, and in fact were tried under crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg trials, modern conceptions note that the targeting of a protected group for destruction is unique to genocide. Like crimes against humanity, the prohibition of genocide is customary international law and an established norm, meaning it is binding on all states without exception. In addition, it has been codified and included in

9300-518: The convention unless it was excluded. Most genocide scholars believe that both cultural genocide and structural violence should be included in the definition of genocide, if committed with intent to destroy the targeted group. Although included in Lemkin's original concept and by some scholars, political groups were also excluded from the Genocide Convention. The result of this exclusion was that perpetrators of genocide could redefine their targets as being

9424-429: The displacement itself, as was the case for many Armenian genocide victims. Cultural destruction, such as that practised at Canadian boarding schools for indigenous children , is often dependent on controlling the victims at a specific location. Destruction of cultural objects, such as religious buildings, is common even when the primary method of genocide is not cultural. Cultural genocide, such as residential schools ,

9548-519: The domestic penal codes of these countries. Lemkin also worked with a team of lawyers from Arab delegations at the United Nations to build a case to prosecute French officials for genocide in Algeria. Lemkin also applied the term 'genocide' in his 1953 article "Soviet Genocide in Ukraine", which he presented as a speech in New York City. Although the speech itself does not use the word "Holodomor", Lemkin asserts that an intentional program of starvation

9672-411: The enslavement or forced assimilation of women and children—often limited to a particular town or city rather than applied to a larger group—is a common feature of ancient warfare as described in written sources. The events that some scholars consider genocide in ancient and medieval times had more pragmatic than ideological motivations. As a result, some scholars such as Mark Levene argue that genocide

9796-530: The face of genocide. Article II of the Genocide Convention defines genocide as "...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group": War crimes are serious violations of the laws and customs governing armed conflict. The definition has evolved over time to include actions that occur not just in war between states, but also internal armed conflicts. War crimes run parallel to international humanitarian law — both contained primarily in

9920-488: The first genocides to prehistoric times . Prior to the advent of civilizations consisting of sedentary farmers , humans lived in tribal societies, with intertribal warfare often ending with the obliteration of the defeated tribe, killing of adult males and integration of women and children into the victorious tribe. Genocide is mentioned in various ancient sources including the Hebrew Bible . The massacre of men and

10044-411: The following acts committed with intent to destroy , in whole or in part, a national , ethnical , racial or religious group, as such: A specific " intent to destroy " is the mens rea requirement of genocide. The issue of what it means to destroy a group "as such" and how to prove the required intent has been difficult for courts to resolve. The legal system has also struggled with how much of

10168-656: The forced migration of populations —which had been carried out by the Soviet Union and its satellites, condoned by the Western Allies, against millions of Germans from central and Eastern Europe . Two years after passing a resolution affirming the criminalization of genocide , the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Genocide Convention on 9 December 1948. It came into effect on 12 January 1951 after 20 countries ratified it without reservations . The convention defines genocide as: ... any of

10292-413: The group. The objectives of genocide "would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups". These were not separate crimes but different aspects of the same genocidal process. Lemkin's definition of nation was sufficiently broad to apply to nearly any type of human collectivity, even one based on

10416-632: The idea of genocide, but there is a debate about the nature of this influence. Lemkin worked as an Assistant Prosecutor in the District Court of Brzeżany (since 1945 Berezhany, Ukraine) and Warsaw, followed by a private legal practice in Warsaw. From 1929 to 1934, Lemkin was the Public Prosecutor for the district court of Warsaw. In 1930 he was promoted to Deputy Prosecutor in a local court in Brzeżany . While Public Prosecutor, Lemkin

10540-400: The ideology behind genocide, although they are affected by it to some extent alongside other factors such as obedience, diffusion of responsibility , and conformity. Other evidence suggests that ideological propaganda is not effective in inducing people to commit genocide and that for some perpetrators, the dehumanization of victims, and adoption of nationalist or other ideologies that justify

10664-418: The innocence, helplessness, or defencelessness of its victims. Most genocides occur during wartime, and distinguishing genocide or genocidal war from non-genocidal warfare can be difficult. Likewise, genocide is distinguished from violent and coercive forms of rule that aim to change behavior rather than destroy groups. Some definitions include political or social groups as potential victims of genocide. Many of

10788-481: The international community on the definition of crimes against humanity. The statute did not limit the definition to acts occurring in times of armed conflict, included a wider range of sexual violence as prohibited acts, and expanded the grounds on which persecution can be committed. The statute defines crimes against humanity as any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of

10912-603: The jurisdiction of several international adjudicatory bodies, including the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the International Criminal Court. In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (also known as the Genocide Convention), a dedicated treaty establishing multilateral obligations to act in

11036-500: The jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court . However, most legal scholars do not consider them to be mass atrocity crimes. While it is certainly a grave violation of international law and frequently the context in which mass atrocity crimes are committed, the crime of aggression is distinguishable because it is an attack on the territory, sovereignty, or political independence of a state rather than on individuals. The primary international laws defining mass atrocity crimes are

11160-475: The jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and reports by UN experts. The International Criminal Court (ICC) only has jurisdiction over those who have committed crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, or crimes of aggression. Its jurisdiction is further limited to crimes that occurred within the territory of a state that has accepted the jurisdiction of

11284-703: The law faculty at Duke University in North Carolina in 1941. During the Summer of 1942 Lemkin lectured at the School of Military Government at the University of Virginia . He also wrote Military Government in Europe , a preliminary version of what would become, in two years, his magnum opus , entitled Axis Rule in Occupied Europe . In 1943 Lemkin was appointed consultant to the US Board of Economic Warfare and Foreign Economic Administration and later became

11408-510: The legal team of Robert H. Jackson , Chief US prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunal . The concept of " genocide " was non-existent in any international laws at the time, and this became one of the reasons for Lemkin's view that the trial did not serve complete justice on prosecuting Nazi atrocities targeting ethnic and religious groups. Lemkin committed the rest of his life to push for an international convention , which in his view,

11532-574: The level of rhetoric because both superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) felt vulnerable to accusations of genocide, and were therefore unwilling to press charges against the other party. Despite political pressure to charge "Soviet genocide", the United States government refused to ratify the convention fearing countercharges . Authorities have been reluctant to prosecute the perpetrators of many genocides, although non-judicial commissions of inquiry have also been created by some states. The first conviction for genocide in an international court

11656-470: The level of war crimes are those with a particularly grave effect on persons, objects, and important values that give rise to criminal responsibility. Customs governing armed conflict date back centuries, but the development and codification of the modern concept of war crimes began in the late 19th century with the drafting of The Hague Conventions defining restrictions on methods of warfare. The Geneva Conventions that emerged after World War II, as well as

11780-400: The manuscript for his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe to the publisher in early 1942, and it was published in 1944 as the Holocaust was coming to light outside Europe. Lemkin's proposal was more ambitious than simply outlawing this type of mass slaughter. He also thought that the law against genocide could promote more tolerant and pluralistic societies. His response to Nazi criminality

11904-399: The more sociologically oriented definitions of genocide overlap that of the crime against humanity of extermination , which refers to large-scale killing or induced death as part of a systematic attack on a civilian population. Isolated or short-lived phenomena that resemble genocide can be termed genocidal violence . Cultural genocide or ethnocide—actions targeted at the reproduction of

12028-423: The newly established United Nations in 1946. Opposition to the convention was greater than Lemkin expected due to states' concerns that it would lead their own policies - including treatment of indigenous peoples , European colonialism , racial segregation in the United States , and Soviet nationalities policy - to be labeled genocide. Before the convention was passed, powerful countries (both Western powers and

12152-462: The prohibition against crimes against humanity is considered customary international law and an established norm , meaning it is binding on all states without exception. The term has a long history of use both in political and legal contexts. Crimes against humanity, and similar terms, were used in the 18th century and early 19th century to describe slavery and atrocities committed as part of colonialism . Its first formal use in international law

12276-559: The qualitative research on genocide has focused on the testimonies of victims, survivors, and other eyewitnesses. Studies of genocide survivors have examined rates of depression, anxiety, schizophrenia , suicide, post-traumatic stress disorder , and post-traumatic growth . While some have found negative results, others find no association with genocide survival. There are no consistent findings that children of genocide survivors have worse health than comparable individuals. Most societies are able to recover demographically from genocide, but this

12400-551: The removal of the group from a given territory, instead of destruction as such, or that the genocidal actions were collateral damage of military activity. Attempted genocide , conspiracy to commit genocide, incitement to genocide , and complicity in genocide are criminalized. The convention does not allow the retroactive prosecution of events that took place prior to 1951. Signatories are also required to prevent genocide and prosecute its perpetrators. Many countries have incorporated genocide into their municipal law , varying to

12524-423: The role of ideology in genocide, there is little agreement in how ideology contributes to violent outcomes; others have cited rational explanations for atrocities. Genocides are usually driven by states and their agents, such as elites, political parties, bureaucracies, armed forces, and paramilitaries. Civilians are often the leading agents when the genocide takes places in remote frontier areas. A common strategy

12648-404: The settlers want to acquire land from indigenous people making genocide more likely than with classical colonialism. While the lack of law enforcement on the frontier ensured impunity for settler violence, the advance of state authority enabled settlers to consolidate their gains using the legal system. Genocide was committed on a large scale during both world wars . The prototypical genocide,

12772-505: The specific acts taken against a protected group may be identical, perpetrators of genocide would not be satisfied with the removal of the group if it did not render it destroyed, whereas perpetrators of an ethnic cleansing campaign would theoretically be satisfied. Although ethnic cleansing has not been formally codified in an international treaty, the term has appeared in UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions,

12896-403: The struggle to ratify the Genocide Convention , powerful countries restricted Lemkin's definition to exclude their own actions from being classified as genocide, ultimately limiting it to any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy , in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". Genocide has occurred throughout human history , even during prehistoric times , but

13020-467: The various techniques which had been employed to achieve genocide. Although Lemkin was a Zionist through his entire life, during this period he downplayed his Zionist sympathies in order to convince the Arab and Muslim delegates in the UN to support the UN genocide convention. Between 1953 and 1957, Lemkin worked directly with representatives of several governments, such as Egypt, to outlaw genocide under

13144-671: The violence occurs after they begin to perpetrate atrocities often coinciding with escalation. Although genocide perpetrators have often been assumed to be male, the role of women in perpetrating genocide—although they were historically excluded from leadership—has also been explored. People's behavior changes under the course of events, and someone might choose to kill one genocide victim while saving another. Anthropologist Richard Rechtman writes that in circumstances where atrocities such as genocides are perpetrated, many people refuse to become perpetrators, which often entails great sacrifices such as risking their lives and fleeing their country. It

13268-527: The war, Lemkin chose to remain in the United States. Starting in 1948, he gave lectures on criminal law at Yale University . In 1955, he became a Professor of Law at Rutgers School of Law in Newark. Lemkin also continued his campaign for international laws defining and forbidding genocide, which he had championed ever since the Madrid conference of 1933. He proposed a similar ban on crimes against humanity during

13392-498: The wholesale destruction of the nations over which Germans took control as an overall aim. Some documents Lemkin analysed had been signed by Hitler, implementing ideas of Mein Kampf on Lebensraum , new living space to be inhabited by Germans. With the help of his pre-war associate McDermott, Lemkin received permission to enter the United States , arriving in 1941. Although he managed to save his own life, he lost 49 relatives in

13516-871: The worst crime of all crimes. For his work on international law and the prevention of war crimes, Lemkin received a number of awards, including the Cuban Grand Cross of the Order of Carlos Manuel de Cespedes in 1950, the Stephen Wise Award of the American Jewish Congress in 1951, and the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1955. On the 50th anniversary of the Convention entering into force, Lemkin

13640-612: Was a Polish Jewish lawyer who is known for coining the term genocide and campaigning to establish the Genocide Convention . During the Second World War , he campaigned vigorously to raise international awareness of atrocities in Axis-occupied Europe . It was during this time that Lemkin coined the term " genocide " to describe Nazi Germany 's extermination policies . As a young law student deeply conscious of antisemitic persecution, Lemkin learned about

13764-804: Was a polyglot , fluent in nine languages and reading fourteen. His first published book was a 1926 translation of the Hayim Nahman Bialik Hebrew novella "Behind the Fence" into Polish, with the title Noah and Marinka. It was in Białystok that Lemkin became interested in laws against mass atrocities after learning about the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire , then later the experience of Assyrians massacred in Iraq during

13888-462: Was a 1915 declaration condemning the massacre of Armenians by the Turkish government . Since then the term has been used and defined in similar, but variant ways by the Nuremberg Tribunal , Tokyo Tribunal , International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia , International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda , and International Criminal Court. The Rome Statute reflects the latest consensus of

14012-430: Was a disincentive to extermination, imperial rule could lead to genocide when resistance emerged. Ancient and medieval genocides were often committed by empires. Unlike traditional empires, settler colonialism —particularly associated with the settlement of Europeans outside of Europe—is characterized by militarized populations of settlers in remote areas beyond effective state control. Rather than labor or economic surplus,

14136-774: Was also honored by the UN Secretary-General as "an inspiring example of moral engagement." He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize ten times. In 1989 he was awarded, posthumously, the Four Freedoms Award for the Freedom of Worship. Lemkin is the subject of the plays Lemkin's House by Catherine Filloux (2005) and If The Whole Body Dies: Raphael Lemkin and the Treaty Against Genocide by Robert Skloot (2006). He

14260-672: Was also profiled in the 2014 American documentary film, Watchers of the Sky . Every year, The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights ( T’ruah ) gives the Raphael Lemkin Human Rights Award to a layperson who draws on his or her Jewish values to be a human rights leader. On 20 November 2015, Lemkin's article Soviet genocide in Ukraine was added to the Russian index of "extremist publications", whose distribution in Russia

14384-601: Was also secretary of the Committee on Codification of the Laws of the Republic of Poland, which codified the penal codes of Poland. During this period Lemkin also taught law at the religious-Zionist Tachkemoni College in Warsaw, and took part in Zionist fund raising. Lemkin, working with Duke University law professor Malcolm McDermott , translated The Polish Penal Code of 1932 from Polish to English. In 1933 Lemkin made

14508-621: Was buried in Flushing, Queens , at Mount Hebron Cemetery . At the time of his death, Lemkin left several unfinished works, including an Introduction to the Study of Genocide and an ambitious three-volume History of Genocide that contained seventy proposed chapters and a book-length analysis of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg. The United States, Lemkin's adopted country, did not ratify the Genocide Convention during his lifetime. He believed that his efforts to prevent genocide had failed. "The fact

14632-726: Was essential to prevent the rise of "future Hitlers ". On 9 December 1948, the United Nations approved the Genocide Convention , with many of its clauses based on Lemkin's proposals. Lemkin was born Rafał Lemkin on 24 June 1900 in Bezwodne , a village in the Volkovyssky Uyezd of the Grodno Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus ). He grew up in a Polish Jewish family on

14756-510: Was in 1998 for a perpetrator of the Rwandan genocide . The first head of state to be convicted of genocide was in 2018 for the Cambodian genocide . Although it is widely recognized that punishment of the perpetrators cannot be of an order with their crimes, the trials often serve other purposes such as attempting to shape public perception of the past. The field of genocide studies emerged in

14880-433: Was included in the 1944 research-work " Axis Rule in Occupied Europe ", wherein Lemkin documented mass-killings of ethnic groups deemed " untermenschen " by Nazi Germany . The concept of " genocide " was defined by Lemkin to refer to the various extermination campaigns launched by Nazi Germany to wipe out entire racial groups, including European Jews in the Holocaust . After the Second World War , Lemkin worked on

15004-415: Was sharply different from that of another international law scholar, Hersch Lauterpacht , who argued that it was essential to protect individuals from atrocities, whether or not they were targeted as members of a group. According to Lemkin, the central definition of genocide was "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" in which its members were not targeted as individuals, but rather as members of

15128-540: Was the "third prong" of Soviet Russification of Ukraine, and disagrees that the deaths were simply a matter of disastrous economic policy because of the substantially Ukrainian ethnic profile of small farms in Ukraine at the time. In the last years of his life, Lemkin was living in poverty in a New York apartment. In 1959, at the age of 59, he died of a heart attack in New York City . Only several close people attended his funeral at Riverside Church . Lemkin

15252-400: Was transformed into one that favored colonial powers. Among the violence freed from the stigma of genocide included the destruction of political groups, which the Soviet Union is particularly blamed for blocking. Although Lemkin credited women's NGOs with securing the passage of the convention, the gendered violence of forced pregnancy, marriage, and divorce was left out. Additionally omitted was

15376-600: Was widely accepted by the international community and was one of the legal bases of the Nuremberg Trials . In 1945 to 1946, Lemkin became an advisor to Supreme Court of the United States Justice and Nuremberg Trial chief counsel Robert H. Jackson . The book became one of the foundational texts in Holocaust studies , and the study of totalitarianism, mass violence, and genocide studies. After

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