Prosecuting Genocide

Throughline

NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.7 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The word "genocide" can seem like it’s everywhere right now: So it can be easy to forget that, fundamentally, it's a legal term that dates to World War II — and wasn’t used in court for half a century afterwards. Today on the show, the story of what happened during the Bosnian War in the 1990s and the work that went into building the legal case to prove genocide.
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Transcript

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1:01.4	A note before we start.
1:05.3	This episode includes descriptions of violence.
1:17.4	Nuremberg, Germany, November 1945, just a few months after the official end of World War II.
1:24.1	A group of judges from allied countries file into a courtroom, most wearing black robes.
1:30.4	To their right, Nazi officers, some in uniform, others in suits, sit on wooden benches and the defendant's dock. The charges against them, war crimes, crimes against humanity,
1:37.7	and crimes against peace. Opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world,
1:46.6	imposes a grave responsibility.
1:50.4	The Chief American Prosecutor, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, makes the opening statement.
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