1,720,979 research outputs found
Moving Beyond ‘Technical Fixes’: Genocide Prevention and the United Nations
No full textSince the adoption of the Genocide Convention in 1948, the UN’s record as an effective preventive actor has been mixed at best. This paper charts some of the institutional ‘lessons learned’ in the UN. I argue that in recent decades the UN has made substantial improvements to its capacity for early warning and preventive diplomacy. This had a palpable effect in preventing an escalation of mass violence in at least three cases – Kenya, Libya and Cote d’Ivoire. However, it has had limited success in moving beyond what Mark Levene refers to as ‘technical fixes’, to addressing structural preconditions over the long term. To do this, the very idea of prevention, which the UN draws on, is itself in need of revision
The Responsibility to prevent: Opportunities, challenges and strategies for operationalisation
Full text linkThe report examines this responsibility, and considers what may constitute “appropriate and necessary means” to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Section One explores the conceptual challenges and opportunities presented by the ‘responsibility to prevent’. Section Two offers a number of strategic frameworks through which specific operational measures can be developed in a manner likely to maximise their effectiveness. Section Three presents individual strategies that can be utilised towards the structural and direct prevention of mass atrocity crimes. Implementing the ‘responsibility to prevent’, through utilising international support and cooperation, and through the identification and implementation of a range of strategies, can have the profound impact intended by those at the World Summit
Operationalising the preventive component of the responsibility to protect: Strategies and implementation
No full textOn the timing of genocide
No full textThis article offers new insights as to the timing of genocide. Current models of the preconditions of genocide offer value information as to its antecedents, but do not adequately explain how these factors develop and coalesce over time. The present article follows the temporal development of the risk of genocide in both the Ottoman Empire prior to the Armenian genocide of 1915 and Rwanda prior to the 1994 genocide. Through analyzing these case studies, it suggests that there are substantial commonalities in the progression of risk of genocide over time. A new model is proposed that incorporates temporal progression as an integral com- ponent of understanding the factors that lead to genocide
Book Review: \u3ci\u3eAll Necessary Measures: The United Nations and Humanitarian Intervention\u3c/i\u3e
Full text linkCountdown to genocide: an exploration of the timing of the Armenian and Rwandan genocides
No full text© 2007 Dr. Deborah MayersenCountdown to Genocide: An Exploration of the Timing of the Armenian and Rwandan Genocides is a quest to improve our understanding of the timing of genocide. Why did the Armenian genocide erupt in Turkey in 1915, only seven years after the Armenian minority achieved civil equality for the first time in the history of the Ottoman Empire? How can we explain the Rwandan genocide occurring in 1994, after decades of relative peace and even cooperation between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority? In the wake of the seeming explosion of genocides that have marked the twentieth century, scholars in the field of comparative genocide studies have identified and modelled preconditions and risk factors for genocide. Yet there is only a very limited understanding of how such determinants develop over time.
Adopting an historical approach, this thesis will focus upon the chronological development of risk factors for genocide. The changing risk profile of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire will be considered from the emergence of the ‘Armenian question’ to the genocide itself. Similarly, this thesis will chart the development of risk of genocide in Rwanda from the early politicisation of the Hutu-Tutsi distinction through to the eruption of genocide in April 1994. The particular roles of predisposing and precipitating factors will be explored. The thesis will also investigate the role of constraints in inhibiting genocide, through an examination of the pre-genocidal massacres that occurred in both Ottoman Turkey and Rwanda some decades prior to each genocide. Why did the Hamidian massacres of 1894-96, in which 100,000 Ottoman Armenians were slaughtered, not erupt into genocide? If the invasion of second generation Tutsi refugees into Rwanda in 1990 triggered the events that led to the 1994 genocide, why did a similar refugee invasion in 1963 trigger only more limited massacres? Potentially, the role of constraints in inhibiting genocide may be as significant as that of preconditions in provoking it. Finally, this thesis will consider whether there is a discernable pattern in the way in which risk factors for genocide develop over time, and, if so, what the implications of that may be for future genocide prevention
Intermittent Intervention: Europe and the Precipitation of the Armenian Massacres of 1894-1896
No full text- …
