Philippe Sands - on the origins of genocide and crimes against humanity - 20th Feb 2019
Channel: Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow
Date: 2019-02-22

Prof Sands, Philippe Sands, genocide, lawyer, human rights, crimes, humanity, law, Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow


‘East West Street’: on the origins of genocide and crimes against humanity, on the individual and the group. 



When he receives an invitation to deliver a lecture in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, international lawyer Philippe Sands begins a journey on the trail of his family’s secret history. In doing so, he uncovers a series of unlikely coincidences that lead him halfway across the world, to the origins of modern international law, in the 1945 ‘moment’ and at the Nuremberg trial. His research interweaves the stories of the two Nuremberg prosecutors (Hersch Lauterpacht and Rafael Lemkin) who invented the legal concepts of ‘genocide’ and ‘crimes against humanity’,  the  Nazi  governor  responsible  for  the  murder  of  thousands  in  and  around  Lviv  (Hans  Frank),  exploring the way in which international law oscillates between the protection of the individual and the group. In this talk, he explores the enduring consequences of the ideas of Lemkin and Lauterpacht, and the challenges they face today.