This lesson introduces readers to the life of Raphael Lemkin and the impact of the massacre of Armenians on Lemkin’s thinking and his journey to coin the word genocide. It also traces his tireless effort to make genocide an international crime at the newly founded United Nations. The lesson examines the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, especially Article II; resistance to the convention’s ratification in the U.S. Senate; how settler colonialism ca...
