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I. Introduction

The total number of victims of genocide in the last century exceed 170 million. The mankind's 20th century started off with Armenian Genocide and ended with 'ethnic cleansing' in Kosovo. Hence, it is not difficult to say that the past hundred years we lived can be termed 'the century of genocide.' Even in the status quo genocide is taking place in certain parts of the world, and because of this, the research on genocide is progressing year by year.

Ever since Raphael Lemkin first came up with the word 'genocide' in late 1943, there has been disputes over many aspects even including its definition. The disputes about genocide always have been intense, because genocide is not merely an academic category used to account for historic and social phenomenon. Rather, it is a legal concept about a crime that needs to be prevented and punished. Because genocide is more of a pending issue of the international law than it is an issue of domestic law, the in-depth discussion on its definition, prevention and punishment has to be equally as complex. The facts that not a small number of the United Nations members is still refraining from concluding the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide since the United Nations General Assembly passed it on December 19, 1948, and also that the United States took 38 years to ratify the Convention show how challenging it is to define the term 'genocide' and to reach a consensus on its constitutive concepts.

This essay will analyse the historical background of genocide and how it came to be settled as a Convention. More importantly, the latter part of the essay will argue that the probability of success in proving genocide under the international law is low du...

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...n October 1946 with the strong supports of representatives from America, Cuba, India, and Panama. The first draft of the resolution drawn by the Legal Committee stated that just as homicide is denying a person's right to live, genocide is denying the rights of a human group as a whole. This proved that genocide was indeed against the values and aims the UN pursue. Finally, the UNGA unanimously adopted the Genocide Resolution 96(I) on December 11. This came to be the first ground on which the international society could intervene in order to stand for the minorities in the danger of being exterminated. It took thirteen years for a crime that was once called "Acts of Barbarity" by the League of Nations and "a crime without a name" by Winston Churchill to be officially approved as an international crime. Without Lemkin's dedicated effort, it could have taken longer.