East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity"

by Philippe Sands

in the rarefied, conservative world of international law—dominated by the idea that the law served the sovereign—the notion that an individual had rights enforceable against the state was inconceivable.

No longer would a state be free to treat its people entirely as it wished.

Lemkin returned to the exchange throughout his life, explaining that the Tehlirian trial changed his life.

refugee life bothered him, like being a ghost in search of certainty and hope.

the arrival in Kraków of the Italian journalist Curzio Malaparte, sent by the newspaper Corriere della Sera to interview Frank. With a soft spot for Italy and Mussolini (a personal friend), Frank was delighted to receive Malaparte at the Wawel, offering a private dinner to which senior officials were invited, with their wives.

Working in the shadows, we inserted a simple line into the preamble, one that stated “the duty of every State to exercise its criminal jurisdiction over those responsible for international crimes.” Seemingly innocuous, the line survived the negotiating process to become the first occasion on which states had recognized any such duty under international law.

The term “genocide,” with its focus on the group, tends to heighten a sense of “them” and “us,” burnishes feelings of group identity, and may unwittingly give rise to the very conditions that it seeks to address: by pitting one group against another, it makes reconciliation less likely.

In today’s Lviv, where Lemkin and Lauterpacht are forgotten, identity and ancestry are complex, dangerous matters.