Lemkin Reunion Remembers Srebrenica

The School of Public Policy's Center for Conflict, Negotiation and Recovery (CCNR) is hosting the second annual Lemkin Reunion on October 2. The Lemkin Reunion was established to honor the memory of Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer who is credited with first using the word genocide to denote "the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group." Lemkin, who lost 49 relatives during the Holocaust, campaigned ceaselessly during his life to develop a legal framework to define and criminalize genocide.

The focus of this year's reunion is the Bosnian Genocide, which is a topic that CCNR explored in April 2015 during a one-day international youth conference. The worst act of genocide in Europe since World War II, the Srebrenica massacres prompted an international reaction that led to the end of the war in Bosnia in fall 2015. During the 2015 Lemkin Reunion, which is part of the Milders Lecture Series, distinguished panelists will analyze the lasting impact that the Bosnian Genocide has had on Europe.

CEU President and Rector John Shattuck, who had a distinguished career as a civil rights lawyer and diplomat before being appointed to his current position in 2009, will be among the panelists that will include CEU Board member, author, and journalist Kati Marton; Mohamed Durakovic, Srebrenica survivor and head of mission of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) in Libya; and Bert Bakker, former MP 1994-2006, president of the parliamentary committee of enquiry on Srebrenica, 2002/2003.

The Lemkin Reunion will take place on October 2, in the CEU Auditorium, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.