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

by Philippe Sands

Allies were entitled to use military force to protect the “rights of man.” The argument was contentious then, and it remains so today, sometimes referred to as “humanitarian intervention.” Indeed, on the very day I first saw Lauterpacht’s original handwritten draft, President Obama and the British prime minister, David Cameron, were trying to persuade the U.S. Congress and the British Parliament that military intervention in Syria was justified in law, to protect the human rights of hundreds of thousands of individuals. The arguments they made—without success—drew on ideas expressed by Lauterpacht, reflected in the concept of crimes against humanity, acts so egregious that others were entitled to act in a protective capacity. Lauterpacht argued that he was doing no more than developing existing, well-established rules. The argument—an ambitious one in 1945—he now made as an advocate, not as a scholar.