Raphael Lemkin Engaged Scholar Award

CGHR’s Raphael Lemkin Engaged Scholar Award honors leading public intellectuals who have produced exemplary scholarship while grappling with the most pressing global challenges.

The award is named after Raphael Lemkin, who taught at the Rutgers School of Law in the mid-1950s and exemplified the spirit of engaged scholarship both through his academic work and public engagement. Lemkin coined the term “genocide,” laying the contours of what would become the field of genocide studies, and fought for the criminalization of genocide though passage of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. He was a dedicated public intellectual and genocide prevention advocate.

The award, which is part of CGHR’s Raphael Lemkin Project, is held in conjunction with the “International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crimes of Genocide and of the Prevention of Genocide,” which marks the passage of the December 9, 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
 

Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, Inaugural Awardee