John Maktos was an employee of the United States State Department from 1929 until 1962.^[1] In 1948 he served as chairman of the United Nations Committee on Genocide that drafted provisions to make genocide an international crime treated in the same way as piracy.^{[citation needed]} In a 1973 interview Maktos describes the international law issues on which he worked as the State Department’s first Assistant Legal Adviser for United Nations Affairs.^[2]

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Maktos was a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Law School.^{[citation needed]}