Overview

February 26, 2009 – Parliamentarians, government officials, and leading civil society organizations came together at EastWest Institute’s Brussels center and called for stronger international efforts to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity. At a policy dialogue organized by EWI’s Preventive Diplomacy Program, leaders emphasized the need to:

  • dedicate greater resources to prevent genocide, not just respond to genocide once it has begun;
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  • better equip the international community to prevent genocide;
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  • improve institutional structures for genocide and conflict prevention;
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  • enhance information sharing; and
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  • establish a trigger mechanism for the international community to respond to threats of genocide.

The dialogue, organized under the aegis of EWI’s Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention, followed the recent release of Preventing Genocide, a landmark report from U.S. Institute of Peace’s Genocide Prevention Task Force. The dialogue is in line with the Parliamentarians Network’s guiding principles, which urge its members “to ensure that governments are legally bound to report promptly to their respective parliaments in case of pending conflict, in particular genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.”

“We must not look at the prevention of genocide in too much of a restrictive way,” said Hilde Vautmans, chair of the Belgian Federal Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee and a member of the Parliamentarians Network. “We should look at what development can do. Building up a country’s military apparatus, the education infrastructure, the police force; that is also the prevention of genocide.”

Lawrence Woocher, a key drafter of Preventing Genocide, echoed Vautman’s statements, stressing the need to shift the debate from military intervention to a broader set of tools and resources focused on prevention efforts.

Many participants applauded the success of current genocide prevention efforts. Olivia Swaak-Goldman of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, pointed to the proactive role the ICC has recently played in Darfur and the court’s arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan.

“All past genocides, in World War II in Europe, in Rwanda, and in the Former Yugoslavia, have been carefully planned,” she said. “Now the planners know that they can be prosecuted.”

Hamdi Osman of the Sudanese Embassy in Brussels disagreed with Swaak-Goldman, urging the international community to recognize the Darfur conflict not as genocide but as a long-standing tribal conflict exacerbated by climate change and water shortages.

Swaak-Goldman suggested that the final decision to issue a warrant lies with ICC judges. If they did, she said, it would be the end of impunity for Bashir and an opportunity to prevent future crimes. (The ICC has since issued a warrant for Bashir’s arrest.)

Participants also stressed the need for greater international coordination on genocide, especially between Europe and the U.S. Belgium’s Vautmans called on European states to convince the U.S. to join genocide prevention efforts.

“There needs to be a spotlight on genocide prevention as a national priority in the U.S., from the president to the public,” added USIP’s Woocher.

Other participants acknowledged the need for greater international cooperation, but reminded the group that such cooperation is still rhetoric rather than reality, as is the commitment of resources for genocide prevention and preventive action.

“Genocide is the single most cruel crime against humanity,” said Vautmans. “We can prevent it, but not alone. We should reach a state where never again we need to say ‘never again.’ ”

Ortwin Hennig, EastWest Institute vice-president and head of the Conflict Prevention Program, chaired the meeting.