The adoption by the legal committee of the U.N. General Assembly of a genocide convention making destruction of national, ethnical, racial or religious groups an international crime, was lauded today in a statement issued by the U.S. Committee for a United Nations Genocide Convention, over the signatures of James N. Rosenberg, chairman, and Willard Johnson secretary.
“This is a historic stop which can in future years rank with the Magna Charts and our Bill of Rights as a milestone in mankind’s struggle for human rights,” the statement said. “The vote for the convention was 30 in favor, none opposed. But there were eight abstentions; namely, the Soviet bloc and, to our amazement, also Great Britain. That Britain, the birthplace of Magna Charta, should have abstained from support is hard to comprehend.”
Mr. Rosenberg expressed the hope that Britain will eventually join with the United States in supporting the genocide convention. He revealed that during a visit to London he conferred on this subject with Hector McNeil, British Minister of State. He paid high tribute to Ernest Gross, legal advisor of the State Department, and to John Foster Dulles, member of the U.S. delegation at the United Nations, for their active interest in bringing about a genocide pact and emphasized that credit for the idea to outlaw genocide is due to Prof. Raphael Lemkin, formerly professor of international law at Warsaw University, who lost more than 40 members of his family in the Nazi extermination camps. He is now a professor of law at Yale University.
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