Genocide, Atrocity, and International Criminal Justice

The Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who had fled Nazi-occupied Europe, coined the term 'genocide' in 1944, combining the Greek genos, meaning race or tribe, with the Latin cide, meaning killing, to describe the deliberate destruction of a national, ethnic, or religious group. His advocacy led directly to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the UN General Assembly on 9 December 1948, one day before the Universal Declaration, and entering into force in 1951. The Convention defines genocide as specified acts committed 'with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,' establishes individual criminal responsibility for it regardless of official position, and obliges states parties to prevent and to punish it.