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11. REGIONAL POLICY FORUM ON THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT

Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Abstract:
The „Regional Policy Forum on the Responsibility to Protect‟ (R2P) was held from 11-12 June 2012 in Abuja, Federal Republic of Nigeria. It was jointly organized by the ECOWAS Commission and the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (GCR2P). The main objective of the Forum was to raise awareness on the concept of R2P within the region and to critically examine existing ECOWAS policies and institutions for protecting populations against mass atrocities. The Forum also aimed at identifying frameworks, institutions, and practices within ECOWAS for prevention and effective response to mass atrocities. The Regional Forum brought together about 60 international, regional and national participants from the public and private sectors, UN, regional organisations, the diplomatic community as well as international and national civil society organisations.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Political Violence, Genocide, Human Rights, Human Welfare, and War
Political Geography:
Africa and United Nations

12. The Diversity of Truth Commissions and Commissions of Inquiry

Author:
Evelyne Schmid
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Over the past several decades, dozens of countries have established truth commissions and other bodies to investigate mass atrocities or systematic human rights abuse. Lessons learned from past truth-finding processes are invaluable to help address the legacies of human rights violations in countries transitioning to democratic regimes in the Middle East and North Africa and elsewhere. Truth commissions aim to uncover and acknowledge abuses from the past by recognizing the suffering of victims and making recommendations to prevent a recurrence of violence in the future. When convening authorities establish a truth commission, they need to select a process to choose the commission's membership, decide on the subject matter and a deadline for the work it will do as well as its legal powers, its duration and the extent to which its work is public. USIP has established a Truth Commissions Digital Collection (http://www.usip.org/publications/truth-commission-digital-collection) that provides summaries and vital statistics of 41 past commissions from 35 countries, along with copies of most of their legal charters and final reports. Each commission has a dedicated page along with information on subsequent developments, such as reforms, prosecutions and reparations to victims. The Truth Commissions Digital Collection is a resource for researchers and implementers seeking to learn and apply lessons from the past to make current “truth processes” more effective.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Genocide, Human Rights, Human Welfare, and Torture
Political Geography:
Africa and Middle East

13. Sudan: From Conflict to Conflict

Author:
Marina Ottaway and Mai El-Sadany
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Less than a year after the old “greater” Sudan split into the northern Republic of Sudan and the new Republic of South Sudan—or North and South Sudan, for clarity—the two countries were again in a state of war. Years of international efforts to bring an end to decades of conflict by helping to negotiate the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 and later efforts to ensure a smooth separation of North and South appear to have come to naught.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Civil War, Genocide, Islam, Treaties and Agreements, and Territorial Disputes
Political Geography:
Africa and South Sudan

14. Promoting Reconciliation through Exhuming and Identifying Victims in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide

Author:
Erin Jessee
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
In the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 Tutsi civilians were killed, the ICTR commissioned a series of mass grave exhumations in Kigali and Kibuye. These exhumations were conducted by PHR, a Boston-based nongovernmental organization (NGO). Its mandate was to provide scientifically rigorous evidence that revealed the criminal nature of specific massacres in Kigali and Kibuye, as well as the statistical elements of the crimes, including the sex, ethnicity, age, and cause and manner of death for the individual victims (Haglund, 1997: 1; Haglund and Kirschner, 1997: ii).
Topic:
Political Violence, Genocide, Human Rights, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Africa

15. Tackling the Threat of Mass Atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Applying the Responsibility to Protect

Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Abstract:
Since 1996, conflict in the DRC has claimed, according to the International Rescue Committee, over five million lives, either as a direct result of hostilities or because of disease and malnutrition associated with the fighting. Considered the deadliest conflict since World War II, the targeting of civilians has been a hallmark of the violence. Millions have been killed and forcibly displaced. Women, men and children have been brutally raped, children have been abducted and forcibly conscripted, and towns have been pillaged. Committed with impunity and perpetrated by foreign and domestic armed groups, and by state and non - state actors including the armed forces of the DRC (FARDC), these crimes pose an ongoing threat to populations in the DRC, with those in the east facing the greatest threat.
Topic:
Political Violence, Genocide, Health, and War
Political Geography:
Africa and Democratic Republic of the Congo

16. Disrupting the Supply Chain for Mass Atrocities

Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Human Rights First
Abstract:
Mass atrocities are organized crimes. Those who commit genocide and crimes against humanity depend on third parties for the goods and services—money, matériel, political support, and a host of other resources—that sustain large-scale violence against civilians. Third parties have supplied military aircraft used by the Sudan Armed Forces against civilians, refined gold and other minerals coming out of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and ensured a steady flow of arms into Rwanda. Governments seeking to prevent atrocities cannot afford a narrow and uncoordinated focus on the perpetrators of such violence. Rather, an effective strategy must include identifying and pressuring third-party enablers— individuals, commercial entities, and countries—in order to interrupt the supply chains that fuel mass violence against civilians.
Topic:
Political Violence, Crime, Ethnic Conflict, Genocide, Human Rights, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda

17. Prioritizing Protection from Mass Atrocities: Lessons from Burundi

Author:
Gregory Mthembu-Salter, Elana Berger, and Naomi Kikoler
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Abstract:
Over the course of the past forty years, waves of interethnic conflict in Burundi have killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced over a million more. In 1993 the assassination of Melchior Ndadaye, the country's first Hutu president, by paratroopers from Burundi's Tutsi dominated armed forces, set off another round of violence with Hutu militias attacking Tutsi civilians and the armed forces retaliating by attacking Hutu communities. The situation ultimately devolved into a civil war that lasted for more than ten years.
Topic:
Ethnic Conflict, Genocide, Human Rights, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Africa and Burundi

18. Disrupting the Supply Chain for Mass Atrocities

Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights First
Abstract:
Mass atrocities are organized crimes. Those who commit genocide and crimes against humanity depend on third parties for the goods and services—money, matériel, political support, and a host of other resources-that sustain large—scale violence against civilians. Third parties have supplied military aircraft used by the Sudan Armed Forces against civilians, refined gold and other minerals coming out of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and ensured a steady flow of arms into Rwanda. Governments seeking to prevent atrocities cannot afford a narrow and uncoordinated focus on the perpetrators of such violence. Rather, an effective strategy must include identifying and pressuring third-party enablers— individuals, commercial entities, and countries—in order to interrupt the supply chains that fuel mass violence against civilians.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Crime, and Genocide
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

19. Dilemmas of Regional Peacemaking: The Dynamics of the AU's Response to Darfur

Author:
A. Sarjoh Bah
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
The African Union's (AU) peacemaking efforts in Darfur exposed the limits of implementing its ambitious peace and security agenda, and the absence of an effective international system to support regional peacemaking efforts. This paper contends that the AU's efforts brought to the fore three critical issues: first, the gap between the AU's mandate to intervene in situations involving war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide as provided for in its founding charter, the Constitutive Act, and its capacity to do so; second, the absence of an international system to support regional peacemaking, especially when it involves deploying complex multidimensional peace operations; finally, it brought into sharper focus the inherent tensions and contradictions surrounding existing norms and emerging concepts such as sovereignty, the responsibility to protect (R2P) and internationalized justice through the International Criminal Court (ICC). The paper focuses on the AU's two pronged strategy in Darfur: Political and Military/peacekeeping.
Topic:
Security, Genocide, Human Rights, Humanitarian Aid, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Africa

20. Unwilling and Unable: The Failed Response to the Atrocities in Darfur

Author:
James Traub
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Abstract:
Starting in mid-2003, the government of Sudan responded to an armed rebellion in the western state of Darfur with a massive campaign of killing and expulsion carried out both by regular army troops and by a proxy force known as the Janjaweed. United Nations (UN) sources estimate that this orchestrated effort led to the death of at least 300,000 people, while over two million were forcibly displaced. Extensive documentation by the UN, human-rights organizations and the media leaves no doubt that the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, and did so over a period of many years. Yet all attempts to stop the killing, whether by neighbors, regional organizations, Western states or the UN Security Council, proved ineffective. In 2005, states-including Sudan-unanimously agreed that they had a responsibility to protect populations from mass atrocities; but this abstract commitment has had little effect on the Sudanese government or on other UN member states who had made this pledge.
Topic:
Security, Political Violence, Genocide, Human Rights, United Nations, Armed Struggle, and Sectarian violence
Political Geography:
Africa