Entry into force: 12 January 1951, in accordance with article XIII The Contracting Parties , Having considered the declaration made by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its resolution 96 (I) dated 11 December 1946 that genocide is a crime under international law, contrary to the spirit and aims of the United Nations and condemned by the civilized world, Recognizing that at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity, and “ Genocide ” is an internationally recognized crime. The term has a specific legal definition. It refers to certain acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The definition of the crime of genocide as contained in Article II of the Genocide Convention was the result of a negotiating process and reflects the compromise reached among United Nations ... The word genocide was created by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew, in 1944. It combined the words genos (Greek for "family, tribe or race") and -cide (from the Latin occidere, "to kill"). [2] In 1933 Lemkin spoke at a League of Nations conference on international criminal law in Madrid. He delivered an essay called the Crime of Barbarity. On 11 August 1933, a group of Assyrians [3] were massacred in Iraq. This reminded Lemkin of the Armenian Genocide during World War I. [3] In his essay, Lemkin ...
