Genocide

Heather Gautney

Raphaël Lemkin (1900–59), a Jewish lawyer from Poland who wrote extensively about international law and crimes against humanity, coined the term genocide in his most famous work, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe , published in 1944 by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In his extensive analysis of German rule during the Holocaust, Lemkin derived the term genocide from the Greek root for tribe or nation (genos) and the Latin root for killing (-cide). Predating his creation of the term was Lemkin's work on earlier forms of genocide, such as the Armenian genocide during World War I and the mass murder of Assyrians in Iraq in the 1930s. Lemkin not only contributed a conceptual understanding of genocide but also campaigned for its crim-inalization at the international level. His definition of genocide provided a legal basis for the Nuremburg trials. Furthermore, his work helped inspire the United Nations to establish, on ...

Users without subscription are not able to see the full content on this title. Please, subscribe or login to access all content on this website.