According to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law – Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, “The term ‘genocide’ was first used by Raphael Lemkin in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, published in late 1944.” While the International Military Tribunal trying Nazi prisoners was limited to crimes perpetrated after the outbreak of war, there were strong efforts within the United Nations General Assembly to also condemn what some called “peacetime genocide.”
“At the first session of the General Assembly, in late 1946, Cuba, Panama and India presented a draft resolution that had two objectives: a declaration that genocide was a crime that could be committed in peacetime as well as in time of war, and recognition that genocide was subject to universal jurisdiction — that is, it could be prosecuted by any State, even in the absence of a territorial or personal link to the person accused of committing the crimeof genocide. General Assembly resolution 96 (I), adopted on 11 December 1946, affirmed ‘that genocide is a crime under international law which the civilized world condemns’. It was silent as to whether the crime could be committed in peacetime, and although it described genocide as a crime ‘of international concern’, it provided no clarification on the subject of jurisdiction. Resolution 96 (I) mandated the preparation of a draft convention on the crime of genocide.”
Draft text for the convention was prepared initially by the United Nations Secretariat and then reworked by an Ad Hoc Committee set up under the authority of the Economic and Social Council. The “Ad Hoc Committee draft was the basis of negotiations in the Sixth Committee [Legal] of the General Assembly, in late 1948, which agreed upon the final text of the Convention, submitting it for formal adoption to the plenary General Assembly.” The Sixth Committee made several important decisions, such as excluding “cultural genocide” from the scope of the Convention, and also including “forcible transfer of children from one group to another.” It also excluded from the scope of the treaty what later became known as “ethnic cleansing,” worded then as “measures intended to oblige members of a group to abandon their homes in order to escape the threat of subsequent ill-treatment.”
Additionally, the UN’s Audiovisual Library reports, the drafters quite explicitly rejected universal jurisdiction for the crime. Article VI recognises only territorial jurisdiction, as well as the jurisdiction of an international criminal tribunal. There was, of course, no international criminal tribunal at the time. But when it agreed to the Convention, the General Assembly also adopted a resolution directing that work begin on a draft statute for such a court. This was the beginning of sporadic work that would eventually lead, half a century later, to the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations by its resolution 260 A (III) on 9 December 1948. The Convention entered into force 12 January 1951 after 20 States had ratified or acceded to it.