ABSTRACT
Raphael Lemkin protested against the killing of defenseless people from childhood, and tried to ensure legal protection for groups of people. His approach evolved from proposing to outlaw “barbarism” and “vandalism” in the 1930s to introducing the concept of “genocide” in his most famous book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1944. He was later the driving force and the primary author of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations in 1948. His idea was limited, however, in terms of the scope of the crime, the protected groups and the means of genocide. Nevertheless, criticism stemming from the limited utility of the Convention is more often directed against Lemkin and his ideas than the main national powers, which had a decisive influence on the final definition of genocide.
