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11. 2020 Sudikoff Interdisciplinary Seminar on Genocide Prevention: Rapporteur's Report

Author:
Alex Vandermaas-Peeler
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Abstract:
On June 10, 2020, the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum brought together scholars, practitioners, and civil society representatives to discuss possible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global risk of mass atrocities and efficacy of mass atrocity prevention. This seminar was the first in a series designed to stimulate new policy-relevant research and begin building a network of scholars and practitioners focused on global trends and their implications for mass atrocities and atrocity prevention. Future seminar series topics include the global distribution of power, new technologies, demographics, climate change, and resource competition, and norms and ideologies. This rapporteur’s report summarizes major observations raised during the workshop.
Topic:
Genocide, Risk, Atrocities, COVID-19, Health Crisis, and Atrocity Prevention
Political Geography:
Global Focus

12. Lessons Learned in Preventing and Responding to Atrocities: Organizing, Expanding, and Encouraging the Use of Policy-relevant Knowledge

Author:
Alexandra Hall
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Abstract:
“Lessons Learned in Preventing and Responding to Atrocities: Organizing, Expanding, and Encouraging the Use of Policy-relevant Knowledge” aims to improve atrocity prevention strategies by strengthening their linkages to an expanding and increasingly accessible body of policy-relevant knowledge. It is motivated by the assumption that understanding the effectiveness of different policy options should influence how governments devise strategies to prevent and respond to atrocities. However, there are at least three key challenges to encouraging the use of knowledge in policy decision-making: (1) Extant knowledge is diffuse and rarely organized in ways that respond to policymakers’ key questions; (2) There are large gaps in the existing knowledge base; and (3) Policy processes frequently fail to make use of policy-relevant knowledge, even when it exists in accessible forms. The Simon-Skjodt Center developed three distinct elements for the “Lessons Learned” project. The first element of the project is to collect, distill, and organize existing policy-relevant knowledge--defined broadly to include theoretical and empirical research as well as the insights of experienced practitioners. The second element is to help expand the knowledge base by conducting or commissioning retrospective studies of U.S. policy in relation to major atrocity crises. The third element is to analyze how lessons learned from past policy actions could be more regularly integrated into U.S. government atrocity prevention processes.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Atrocities, Domestic Policy, and Atrocity Prevention
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

13. The Role of Civilians and Civil Society in Preventing Mass Atrocities

Author:
Zachariah Mampilly, Daniel Solomon, Anushani Alagarajah, Dharsha Jegatheeswaran, Nyathon H. Mai, and Congo Research Group
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Abstract:
This paper synthesizes the results of a one-year, multicountry exploration of the role that civilians play in preventing and mitigating the trajectory of mass atrocity episodes. It is the culmination of a unique collaboration between the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide and three partner organizations: Congo Research Group, the Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research, and the Sudd Institute. In consultation with the Simon-Skjodt Center, each country team conducted a subnational comparative study of civilian involvement in mass atrocity episodes. This paper brings together the findings from each country study to offer a general framework for understanding civilian agency and assesses how well existing theories of civilian action can account for the outcomes across cases. In addition, it addresses the conceptual and methodological challenges of studying civilian agency and the role of civil society cross-nationally. The study calls for a reconceptualization of civil society that moves away from traditional concepts in favor of foregrounding the political and economic contexts that civilians navigate during a conflict and its aftermath.
Topic:
Civil Society, Conflict, Civilians, Atrocities, and Atrocity Prevention
Political Geography:
Global Focus

14. The Role of Justice in Preventing Mass Atrocities: Evolving Debates and New Directions

Author:
Kyra Fox
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Abstract:
Scholars and practitioners agree past atrocities are a strong predictor of future atrocities within a country. 1 Given this, many argue that transitional justice--which aims to help societies deal effectively with past abuses--has an important role to play in atrocity prevention, especially in preventing the recurrence of mass atrocities. Practitioners and international justice lawyers often assume that effective transitional justice should facilitate atrocity prevention. The Preamble to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) articulates the Court’s determination to “put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of these crimes and thus to contribute to the prevention of such crimes.” A 2018 study by the UN Special Rapporteur on the 2 promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence and the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide discusses the “contribution of transitional justice to the prevention of gross violations and abuses of human rights and serious violations of international humanitarian law, particularly to the prevention of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, and their recurrence.” 3 Among scholars, the preventive capacity of transitional justice is more contentious. Debates have largely centered on the ability of prosecutions to deter potential perpetrators, and a sharp cleavage has emerged between scholars who believe in the deterrent capacity of international criminal justice and those who doubt it. Meanwhile, there has been a relative neglect of (1) transitional justice tools other than 4 prosecutions, and (2) the ways in which transitional justice tools, including prosecutions, might contribute to prevention outside their (potential) deterrent effect. As a result, policymakers and practitioners have little clear guidance about how to maximize the preventive effects of transitional justice efforts. The 2019 Sudikoff Interdisciplinary Seminar on Genocide Prevention will bring together a diverse group of practitioners and scholars to discuss how transitional justice tools (broadly defined) can potentially help prevent mass atrocities. Through the framework of systemic, structural, and operational prevention, scholars and practitioners will examine the ability of transitional justice tools to address the root causes of conflict (structural prevention), influence the calculus of potential perpetrators (operational prevention), and influence global norms (systemic prevention). Ultimately, the seminar will aim to (1) identify directions for fruitful research on the topic of transitional justice tools and atrocity prevention, and (2) generate ideas for new resources to help practitioners maximize the preventive impact of transitional justice tools.
Topic:
Genocide, Transitional Justice, Justice, and Atrocity Prevention
Political Geography:
Global Focus

15. The Role of Justice in Preventing Mass Atrocities: 2019 Sudikof Interdisciplinary Seminar on Genocide Prevention

Author:
Amanda McCaffrey and Andrew Moore
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Abstract:
While justice may advance many goals in the context of mass atrocities, the focus of this seminar was its role in prevention and non-recurrence. The seminar took an expansive definition of justice tools, moving beyond the “transitional” justice framework to explore the potential utility of justice initiatives at all stages of atrocities. Justice interventions are not limited to efforts to prosecute perpetrators after atrocities have occurred, but can also be incorporated early on in at-risk situations and, in some cases, used to stem escalating tensions or violence. With limited scholarly or practical consensus on the role of justice in prevention and non-recurrence, domestic and international actors need to better understand which justice tools are best suited to various stages of conflict and how to design such tools to more effectively prevent and mitigate risks of atrocities. Breaking down silos between communities working on these issues—academics, international justice experts, policymakers, rule of law practitioners, atrocity prevention experts, local experts, victims, historians—is a first step to addressing this need. Participants agreed, however, that more work needs to be done to more precisely answer these questions and to cross-pollinate what research shows and translate it into practical policies, programs, and learnings that practitioners can use. The organizers framed the discussion around three distinct approaches to prevention: 1. Structural Prevention: Efforts to address underlying risk factors and root causes of atrocities in context. 2. Operational Prevention: Efforts to change the decision making processes of individual actors. 3. Systemic Prevention: Efforts to address global or transnational risks that fuel atrocities.
Topic:
Transitional Justice, Training, Justice, Atrocity Prevention, and Risk Assessment
Political Geography:
Global Focus

16. Research Workshop on the Role of Civilians in Preventing and Mitigating Mass Atrocities

Author:
Jamie Wise
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Abstract:
On June 13-14, 2019, the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum convened a workshop with case study research partners and other scholars to discuss the Center’s ongoing project on the role of civilians in preventing and mitigating mass atrocities. This rapporteur’s report summarizes major observations raised on the first day of the workshop, during which all participants made contributions.
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid, Civilians, Donors, and Atrocity Prevention
Political Geography:
Sri Lanka, Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, and Global Focus

17. The 'Responsibility to Protect' and International Development: Connecting the Atrocity-Prevention and Fragile-States Agendas

Author:
David W. Yang
Publication Date:
02-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Abstract:
At the United Nations World Summit in September 2005, global leaders took a historic stand against mass atrocities by adopting the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). One of the principal commitments that UN members made in endorsing the R2P doctrine was to assist states in developing the capacity to protect their populations from mass atrocities.1 In endorsing these “pillar two” actions, the international community recognized that development assistance is the most practical tool for preventing atrocities over the long term. The development community has slowly begun to heed this call, taking steps to integrate atrocity prevention into its policies and programs over the past decade.
Topic:
International Development, Responsibility to Protect (R2P), and Atrocity Prevention
Political Geography:
Global Focus

18. Fighting Fire with Fire: The Growing Nexus between Atrocity Prevention and Counterterrorism and Its Implications for the Use of Force to Protect Civilians

Author:
Colin Thomas-Jensen
Publication Date:
02-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Abstract:
By the fall of 2014, before the United States and its partners began the military campaign to erode the territory held by the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria, the international community understood the horrors endured by civilians living under IS control. While IS leadership plotted politically motivated attacks against its enemies in the region and in the West, reports trickling out from areas under the group’s merciless grip and IS’s own online propaganda clearly indicated a grave pattern of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including violence targeted at ethnic and religious minorities; women; the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community; and other vulnerable groups. As the United States considered its response to the rise of IS, the duality of the group’s threat—an external one to Americans and American interests and an internal one to civilians living in IS-held areas—animated two communities of US policy makers that had rarely interacted with one another: those focused on counterterrorism and atrocity prevention. The US-led military operation to prevent genocide by IS against the Yazidi community on Mount Sinjar, Iraq, that President Barack Obama announced on August 7, 2014, included the first volley of airstrikes in the more-than-three-year counterterrorism campaign to defeat IS in Iraq and Syria. Important for the atrocity-prevention community, the airstrikes and deployment of Special Operations Forces (alongside humanitarian experts) to help coordinate the evacuation of civilians demonstrated an openness on the part of senior US policy makers to use counterterrorism capabilities to prevent a mass atrocity. In hindsight, however, US-led lethal action against IS fighters who threatened thousands of Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar was more the outcome of a unique set of circumstances than a harbinger of a more collaborative relationship between the counterterrorism community and policy makers focused on preventing atrocities committed by state actors, such as the governments of Syria, South Sudan, and Myanmar, and nonstate actors, including militia groups with little to no connection with international terrorist networks. With terrorist groups such as IS, Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin, and al-Shabaab in the Horn of Africa almost certain to continue atrocities against local populations in areas in which they operate, a fundamental question for policy makers arises. Did the extreme circumstances under which the United States and its partners decided to intervene on Mount Sinjar necessarily represent a threshold for action, or can a more normalized relationship between the atrocityprevention and counterterrorism communities be advanced—a relationship that would seek to leverage counterterrorism tools and resources to take decisive action to protect non-US citizens from atrocities while improving measures to avoid civilian casualties, including civilians killed during actions taken by US counterterrorism partners? Drawing from interviews with nearly 40 former and current US policy makers and outside experts1 , as well as a convening of 20 experts at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in June 2017, this paper explains the increasing relevance of the counterterrorism–atrocityprevention nexus and defines some of the significant challenges of closer collaboration between those communities, with a specific focus on preventing imminent atrocities. Defining when (including clearly articulated criteria for what constitutes “imminent” in this scenario), how, and under whose authority to use force to prevent atrocities against civilians is only one element of broadening a counterterrorism strategy that also includes diplomacy and countering violent extremism (CVE) efforts. 2 This paper is narrowly focused on the use of force and argues that in some circumstances, the atrocity-prevention agenda can be advanced by using counterterrorism tools—including lethal strikes—to prevent imminent atrocities against civilians in areas where terrorist groups operate.
Topic:
Counter-terrorism, Islamic State, Civilians, Atrocity Prevention, and Protection
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, Global Focus, and United States of America

19. Advancing knowledge on the role of civilians in preventing and mitigating mass atrocities: Rapporteur’s report

Author:
Daniel Solomon and Mollie Zapata
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Abstract:
Research on mass atrocities and their prevention has overwhelmingly focused on the actions of states as the most common perpetrators of atrocities and most visible actors in attempts to prevent or respond to them. High-profile atrocities committed by non-state actors have recently spurred greater attention on non-state groups as potential perpetrators. Much less focused research has explored the roles of civilians—working through civil society organizations and/or less formal, local community mechanisms—in helping prevent mass atrocities and mitigate imminent threats. As a result, civilians are too often presumed to be passive victims or bystanders. Recent studies suggest that civilians in fact use a range of active strategies, yet many questions remain about these strategies, the conditions for their success, and external actors’ roles in relation to them. The Simon-Skjodt Center’s new research project aims to address gaps in knowledge about the role of civilians in preventing and mitigating atrocities. Participants in this research workshop evaluated the conceptual and definitional issues involved in the study of civil society and civilian self-protection, the current state of knowledge about the role of civilians in atrocity prevention, policy efforts to work with these organizations and individuals, and opportunities for additional research on the topic.
Topic:
Civil Society, Civilians, and Atrocity Prevention
Political Geography:
Global Focus