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Raphaël Lemkin’s development of the concept of genocide is the consequence of a temporal necessity (the extermination of groups does not exist as a crime) and a conjunctural necessity (the fight against Nazism). Although the term genocide was not legally enshrined at the Nuremberg trials, the concept of a crime against humanity was defined in the United Nations’ Genocide Convention, which came into force on 12 January 1951. This is defined as a mass crime, that is, a targeted and coordinated attack on all the elements on which a nation is based. There are two phases: the first is the destruction of the national characteristics of the oppressed group, and the second is the establishment of the characteristics of the oppressor. The legal, moral and human nature of the concept gives it an international dimension. War exists against States and their armies and against their peoples, but genocide is also practised in times of peace and leads to war.