Diplomatic File: Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959) - The Polish Lawyer Who Created the Concept of “Genocide” Cover Image

Diplomatic File: Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959) - The Polish Lawyer Who Created the Concept of “Genocide”
Diplomatic File: Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959) - The Polish Lawyer Who Created the Concept of “Genocide”

Author(s): Ryszard Szawłowski
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences
Published by: PISM Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych

Summary/Abstract: The concept of genocide is firmly rooted in international law and provided for in most contemporary penal codes.1 From the 1970s through the first years of the 21st century, the world had been convulsed by the acts of genocide in Cambodia, in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, in Rwanda and in the Darfur region in western Sudan. The genocide in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda resulted in the creation of two international criminal courts: the International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991 and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The International Criminal Court (ICC) was also established. Its statute (the so-called Rome Statute) came into force on 1 July 2002, and the Court began functioning in mid-2003.

  • Issue Year: 14/2005
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 98-133
  • Page Count: 36
  • Language: English