We live in times of kaleidoscopic historical change when international law and settled after World War II world order once again find themselves threatened and become as the object of flagrant violations. The issue of responsibility of particular subjects of international relations and specific individuals for outright criminal actions that harm the civilized humanity is actual and raised once again.
In this regard, Ukraine based NGO “Society Initiatives Institute” seeks to eliminate embarrassing information void in the social, cultural and spiritual spheres, formed around the figure of the scientist, lawyer, expert on international law Raphael Lemkin, scholar who created and implemented in the broadest scientific and legal usage, the term “genocide.” A true cosmopolitan, Polish lawyer, with Jewish descent, born in territory of modern Belarus, who studied in Ukraine and Germany, before working in the universities in USA, he was writing about the genocide of Armenians, Assyrians (also known as Syriacs) and Jewish People.
It was his efforts which led the term to be entrenched in Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948. Also back in 1953, in his speech to the New York audience “The Soviet genocide in Ukraine”, Raphael Lemkin, was the first to recognize and speak about the crimes of the Stalinist Communist regime against the Ukrainian people, analyzing it in the context of international law.
In order to properly commemorate the name of Raphael Lemkin and to spread and continue the theoretical researches on the issues of genocides, Society Initiatives Institute is organizing this International Essay Contest.
Eligibility
The contest is open to all interested around the globe.
Key Message
The theme of the International Essay Contest is “Genocide – the dark mark of humanity”.
Essay may be written in the context of legal, political, historical, cultural, economic or any other issue connected to genocide.
How to apply?
The deadline for submission of an essay is 30th of November, 2014.
Each contestant can submit only one essay developed in English, Ukrainian, Russian or Polish. It must reflect the contestant’s own writing and original thinking. The Committee will disqualify any essay where plagiarism is suspected.
An essay should be maximum 1000 words long in the following format: essay title / author’s name and contacts / school/university/affiliation / essay (introduction, main arguments, conclusions).
Essays and all questions should be sent to [email protected].
The deadline for submission of an essay is 30th of November, 2014.
Awards
The winners will be selected by the Committee established by Society Initiatives Institute consisting of board members and scholars not more than two weeks after the deadline of essays submission.
The 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners chosen by the Committee will be awarded with 300, 200 and 100 euro respectively.
The best essays will be published on web-pages of organization and its partners.
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