Lemkin was appalled that the banner of “state sovereignty” could shield men who tried to wipe out an entire minority. “Sovereignty,” Lemkin argued to the professor, “implies conducting an independent foreign and internal policy, building of schools, construction of roads . . . all types of activity directed towards the welfare of people. Sovereignty cannot be conceived as the right to kill millions of innocent people.”2 But it was states, and particularly strong states, that made the rules. Lemkin read about the abortive British effort to try the Turkish perpetrators and saw that states would
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