section_path: Origins of the term
section_name: Origins of the term
paragraph_text: Origins of the term
  
  The term "crimes against humanity" is potentially ambiguous because of the ambiguity of the word "humanity", which originally meant the quality of being human (first recorded in 1384) but more recently (in 1450) additionally took on another meaning as a synonym of mankind. The context of the term in documents related to the Nuremberg trials shows that the original sense is intended.
  
  The term "crimes against humanity" was used by George Washington Williams, an American minister, politician and historian, in a letter he wrote to the United States Secretary of State describing the atrocities committed by Leopold II of Belgium 's administration in the Congo Free State in 1890. This was an early but not, as is often claimed, the first use of the term in its modern sense in the English language. In his first annual message in December 1889, U.S. President Benjamin Harrison spoke about the slave trade in Africa as a "crime against humanity". Already in 1883, Williams had used the same term in his reflections about slavery in the United States.
  
  In treaty law, the term originated in the Second Hague Convention of 1899 preamble and was expanded in the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907 preamble and their respective regulations, which were concerned with the codification of new rules of international humanitarian law. The preamble of the two Conventions referenced the "laws of humanity" as an expression of underlying inarticulated humanistic values. The term is part of what is known as the Martens Clause.
  
  On May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers, Britain, France, and Russia, jointly issued a statement explicitly and for the first time ever charging another government with committing "a crime against humanity". An excerpt from this joint statement reads:
  
  In view of these new crimes of Turkey against humanity and civilization, the Allied Governments announce publicly to the Sublime Porte that they will hold personally responsible for these crimes all members of the Ottoman Government, as well as those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres.
  
  At the conclusion of the war, the Allied Commission of Responsibilities recommended the creation of a tribunal to try "violations of the laws of humanity" because the law of war did not cover atrocities committed by a state against its own nationals or allied persons. However, the US representative objected to references to the "law of humanity" as being imprecise and insufficiently developed at that time, and the concept was not pursued.
  
  Nonetheless, a UN report in 1948 referred to the usage of the term "crimes against humanity" regarding the Armenian genocide as a precedent to the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. On May 15, 1948, the Economic and Social Council presented a 384-page report prepared by the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC), set up in London (October 1943) to collect and collate information on war crimes and war criminals.: 129 The report was in compliance with the request by the UN Secretary-General to make arrangements for "the collection and publication of information concerning human rights arising from trials of war criminals, quislings, and traitors, and in particular from the Nuremberg trials and Tokyo Trials." The report had been prepared by members of the Legal Staff of the commission. The report is highly topical regarding the Armenian Genocide, not only because it uses the 1915 events as a historic example but also as a precedent to Articles 6 (c) and 5 (c) of the Nuremberg and Tokyo Charters, and thereby as a precursor to the then newly adopted UN Genocide Convention, differentiating between war crimes and crimes against humanity. By referring to the information collected during WWI and put forward by the 1919 Commission of Responsibilities, the report titled "Information Concerning Human Rights Arising from Trials of War Criminals" used the Armenian case as a vivid example of crimes committed by a state against its own citizens. The report also noted that while the Paris Peace Treaties with Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria did not include any reference to "laws of humanity", instead basing the charges on violations of "laws and customs of war", the Sèvres Peace Treaty with Turkey did so. In addition to the Articles 226–228, concerning customs of war (corresponding to Articles 228–230 of the Treaty of Versailles), the Sèvres Treaty also contained an additional Article 230, in compliance with the Allied ultimatum of May 24, 1915 regarding "crimes against humanity and civilization".: 130