1 of 22 | 

FILE – Starved prisoner’s, nearly dead from hunger, at one of the largest Nazi Concentration camps at Evensee Austria, in the Austrian Alps, May 7, 1945. Many were starving to death and inmates were dying at the rate of 2,000 per week. The camp was reputedly used for ‘Scientific’ experiments. It was liberated by the 80th Division, U.S. Third Army. (AP Photo, File)

2 of 22 | 

FILE- This February/March 1945, file photo shows the entry to the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, with snow covered rail tracks leading to the camp. Israel is hoping the U.N. General Assembly will unanimously adopt a resolution rejecting and condemning any denial of the Holocaust and urging all nations and social media companies “to take active measures to combat antisemitism and Holocaust denial or distortion.” The 193-member world body is scheduled to vote Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022, on the resolution, which is strongly supported by Germany. (AP Photo/Stanislaw Mucha, File)

3 of 22 | 

FILE – In this Nov. 21, 1945, file photo, Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering stands in the prisoner’s dock at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial in Germany. He is entering a plea of not guilty to the International Military Tribunal Indictment. Goering is wearing headphones of the court translating system. Germany marks the 75th anniversary of the landmark Nuremberg trials of several Nazi leaders and in what is now seen as the birthplace of a new era of international law on Friday, Nov. 20, 2020. (AP Photo, file)

4 of 22 | 

FILE – Visitors look at pictures of Jews killed in the Holocaust in the Hall of Names in the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, Sunday, April 7, 2013. The annual Israeli memorial day for the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust of World War II begins at sundown Sunday. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner, File)

BY MIKE CORDERUpdated 2:04 AM GMT+7, January 26, 2024 AP

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — In the aftermath of World War II and the murder by Nazi Germany of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, the world united around a now-familiar pledge: Never again.

A key part of that lofty aspiration was the drafting of a convention that codified and committed nations to prevent and punish a new crime, sometimes called the crime of crimes: genocide.

The convention was drawn up in 1948, the year of Israel’s creation as a Jewish state. Now that country is being accused at the United Nations’ highest court of committing the very crime so deeply woven into its national identity.