Throughout history there have been attempts to destroy groups of human beings because of their race, religion, or nationality. However, until the twentieth century, no international body or document had adopted a formal legal definition of such concerted action. Attempts to develop humanitarian laws, including various treaties and the Geneva Conventions, focused on war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during times of war. Genocide as a legal concept has its origins in the Nazi barbarism of World War II (1939–1945). The Nazis' extermination of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust, recognized by Sir Winston Churchill (1874–1965), prime Minister of Great Britain, as the "crime that has no name," caused the international community to recognize genocide as an international crime.

The Holocaust

The ascension of Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) to power in 1933 as the head of the National Socialist Party in Germany laid the foundation for the Holocaust and the death of over...