ABSTRACT
An important area of Lemkin’s interest was international law and the activity of the International Association of Penal Law (IAPL), established in 1924. Lemkin and Rappaport were both its members. Lemkin’s ideas and proposals lined up with those championed by those sections of the Polish and international communities of lawyers which were close to Rappaport and Pella. Lemkin was supposed to take part in the conference organized by the International Bureau for the Unification of Criminal Law in Madrid in 1933, but he was taken off the Polish delegation by the Polish authorities in the 11th hour. He still managed to presents his hypotheses to the participants. Lemkin’s proposal of 1933 – barbarity, which directly served the purpose of exterminating a particular group, and vandalism, which was directed against culture – was a reaction to both the Soviet system and National Socialism in Germany. In 1933, the proposal drafted by Lemkin had no chances of coming up for discussion, and in the 1930s Lemkin did not revisit his Madrid proposal. The controversy surrounding the Madrid conference of 1933 did not result in Lemkin’s professional marginalization: not only did he continue to practice law, but he also published and participated in numerous international conferences (mostly European), usually delivering papers.
