Prevention Of Mass Atrocities Research Articles

Section 230 and the Duty to Prevent Mass Atrocities

Between August and November, 2017, the Myanmar military carried out a series of brutal attacks against Rohingya Muslim communities in Rakhine State in Myanmar. Myanmar’s military used Facebook as a tool for ethnic cleansing. In theory, Rohingya plaintiffs could bring a state tort law claim against Facebook alleging that Facebook was negligent (or worse) in permitting its social media platform to be utilized to spark mass violence against the Rohingya. Could Facebook be held liable in a civil suit for complicity in genocide, or for aiding and abetting the commission of a crime against humanity? Under current federal law, the answer is clearly “no.” Section 230 of Title 47 of the U.S. Code states: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Judicial decisions establish that Section 230 grants online service providers broad immunity for content posted by third parties. Thus, Section 230 provides Facebook a valid federal preemption defense to a state tort law claim. This essay contends that Congress should create a statutory exception to Section 230 to permit civil suits against social media companies for complicity in genocide or crimes against humanity. The United States has a clear duty under international law to prevent genocide. One could also make a persuasive argument that the United States has a duty under customary international law to prevent crimes against humanity. The United States is not violating its international legal duty to prevent mass atrocities by granting immunity to internet companies. However, withdrawal of that immunity for content that contributes to commission of mass atrocity crimes would be a helpful step for the United States to implement its duty to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity.

Rwanda and the Rohingya

The 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda led the United Nations and global civil society to attempt to reinvent the international atrocity prevention regime. The advent of the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect was to supposed to represent a new-found dedication to the goal of preventing mass atrocities and to intervene to stop them when they do break out. However, the situation of the Rohingya in Myanmar, who have been subject to years of persecution, ethnic cleansing, and – since 2017 – many elements of genocide, suggests that there has been more continuity than change. Rather, many of the same issues that plagued the global response to Rwanda are problematic again with respect to the Rohingya. This essay examines both the promise of change in the global anti-atrocity regime after Rwanda as well as the shortcomings that continue to plague the international response to atrocity.

By All Means Necessary: Protecting Civilians and Preventing Mass Atrocities in Africa

This contribution provides a review of the collective volume "By All Means Necessary: Protecting Civilians and Preventing Mass Atrocities in Africa" edited by Dan Kuwali and Frans Viljoen.

The Implementation Of The First Pillar Of Responsibility To Protect In Indonesia: Critical Analysis Of Law On Social Conflict Management

Responsibility to Protect Principle (R2P) is intended to accomplish the humanitarian intervention principle which considered has a failure in many aspects. However, the existence of this principle still leaves worry, especially for a developing country, over manipulation and politics in its implementation. The formulated problems for this research are (1) how is the development of the R2P principle in International Law? (2) how is the implementation of the first pillar of R2P to prevent mass atrocities crime in the Indonesian government? The result shows that R2P gained more supports and was adopted in General Assembly resolution, completed with three pillars and six thresholds for its implementation. The implementation of the first pillar of R2P in Indonesia as a state responsibility to protect the society from mass atrocities crime has not been conducted properly. Although Indonesia already had a law on social conflict management, however, minimum law enforcement arrangement; high impunity culture, lack of knowledge about R2P, revocation of law on CTR, the impartiality of governmenttowards some majority groups potentially make the implementation of the first pillar of R2P in Indonesia will be failed.

The Responsibility to Protect: from promise to practice

Drawing on their combined 25 years of experience with the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), Alex Bellamy and Edward Luck ask the critical question: how do we move closer to implementing R2P? The two authors are uniquely positioned to reflect on both the history and practice of R2P: Bellamy is the founding director of the Asia–Pacific Centre on R2P and Luck was the United Nations' first special adviser on R2P. The book is essential reading for those who want to better understand the current state of R2P implementation and the ongoing gaps and challenges. The breadth and depth of the book are impressive, drawing on the authors' wealth of research and policy experience within think-tanks, the UN and academia more broadly. The authors begin by retelling the history of R2P––a story that has been told many times before. However, they revisit this narrative from a distance of some years and as individuals with close proximity to events as they unfolded and thus are able to tell a new version of R2P's evolution. Their historical analysis focuses on how the original mandate of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty led to an initial emphasis on questions of humanitarian intervention, as opposed to the prevention of mass atrocities. The dominance of debates on humanitarian intervention, they argue, has made R2P too UN-focused, when the most fundamental prevention activities are carried out by states. By moving beyond the UN forums, they stress the importance not only of local, regional and international actors, but also of the collaboration between them.

The Onset, Spread, and Prevention of Mass Atrocities: Perspectives From Formal Network Models

ABSTRACTMass atrocity case studies routinely refer to networks of perpetrators (and of victims and bystanders) but little formal work is available to pinpoint characteristics of atrocity committing networks and how they operate. For example, how do atrocity ideas spread throughout a population, and how may such diffusion be thwarted? How does one explain the scaling up from few perpetrators to mass participation by thousands of perpetrators? Why do some communities in a given society appear nearly immune to participation whereas others participate en masse? We introduce three formal illustrative models to derive insights into these questions and other issues related to the onset, spread, and possible prevention of mass atrocities. The models demonstrate that formal networking theory can provide compelling insights into a number of puzzles that the genocide literature grapples with.

#StopThisMovie and the Pitfalls of Mass Atrocity Prevention: Framing of Violence and Anticipation of Escalation in Burundi’s Crisis (2015-2017)

#StopThisMovie and the Pitfalls of Mass Atrocity Prevention: Framing of Violence and Anticipation of Escalation in Burundi’s Crisis (2015-2017)

Conceptualising Mass Atrocity Prevention, Nonviolent Resistance, and Politically Feasible Alternatives

I present an account of mass atrocity prevention based on just war theory precepts. This account entails comparisons among policy options and requires selecting the politically feasible option that has the greatest chance of avoiding atrocities. Adopting such an account of atrocity prevention highlights problems in influential mass atrocity prevention policy reports in that they fail to seriously consider nonviolent civil resistance as a mass atrocity prevention tool. Given that sometimes actors may be unwilling to live under the status quo, and agitate for reform by violent or nonviolent means, nonviolence is generally the preferable policy option. This is because under realistic scenarios, the empirical evidence generally indicates that nonviolent means are more likely to achieve positive outcomes across a range of indicators than violent ones. I illustrate my argument by applying it to strategies for democratisation, and rebut objections. Yet, nonviolent civil resistance is risky, and so revolutionary leaders and their supporters should weigh carefully the chances of success and the trade-offs of nonviolent resistance.

A Critical Analysis of the African Union’s Capacities and Capabilities to Prevent Mass Atrocities

The paper aims to represent the findings of the African Task Force (ATF) in critically examining the capacities and capabilities of the African Union in the prevention of mass atrocities. The African Union (AU) was selected for this study because of its existing peace and security mandate and architecture, and its regional influence in addressing and preventing future crises. This research contains a literature review, presenting and evaluating the research that has been carried out on prevention of mass atrocities; the conceptualization of the ATF project, along with its design and methodology; and an analysis of the state of play within the AU on these issues as seen through its approach to the case of Burundi will round out the discussion. The paper then brings some reflections on lessons learned and options for further improvement, to be adapted to the realities on the ground.

R2P and the Prevention of Mass Atrocities: A Child-Centric Approach

Prevention has taken centre-stage in present discussions around both United Nations reform and the r2p implementation agenda. Contemporary humanitarian crises from Myanmar to Yemen reinforce the horrendous atrocities that children face during periods of armed conflict and mass political upheaval to which the prevention agenda is geared. This article considers the atrocity prevention dimension of r2p; it describes changes in both understanding around the dynamics of political violence and strategies for targeting civilians in contemporary conflicts over the past two decades, situates children in the broader social context of mass political violence, and identifies strategies for incorporating a child-centric lens into the existing atrocity prevention toolkit. It argues that while the children and armed conflict agenda strengthens atrocity prevention efforts in relation to children’s specific experiences in violent conflict, it does not serve as an adequate proxy for a child-centric approach to atrocity prevention through both structural and targeted measures.

Why the United Nations Underperforms at Preventing Mass Atrocities

Why the United Nations Underperforms at Preventing Mass Atrocities

Forging Consensus for Atrocity Prevention: Assessing the Record of the OSCE

This essay examines the record of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in fostering norms and collaborative practices for preventing mass atrocities in Eurasia. Comprising fifty-seven participating states “from Vancouver to Vladivostok,” the OSCE is the sole regional security organization spanning all of the members of NATO and the former Warsaw Pact. Its consensus-based approach to advancing “common and comprehensive security” has proved successful in preventing escalation or containing levels of violence in various conflicts in the Baltic states, Ukraine, Southeastern Europe, and the Caucasus. Since the late 1990s, however, rising geopolitical tensions between NATO and the Russian Federation have undermined the effectiveness of the OSCE’s conflict prevention initiatives. In order for the OSCE to play a more robust role in enhancing human security in Eurasia, it will need to find a path toward rebuilding the normative consensus between Russia and its Western participating states.

Human rights, mass atrocity prevention and the United Nations security council: The long road ahead

The fiftieth anniversary of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, both adopted in 1966, provides an opportune moment in history to review the progress on the issue of human rights promotion and examine the Security Council’s overall effectiveness in protecting human rights.

Analysis of the Theories and Methods of Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities

The term has been commonly used, particularly in political dialogue, to describe atrocities of great diversity, magnitude, and character. Yet the restricted approach towards the adoption of the term imposes an intimidating brake to create an effective response to prevent the crime. Since the Genocide Convention was created in 1948, its effectiveness has been hindered. The double mental element aimed at the destruction of the exhaustive group as the prerequisite element to establish the crime under the Convention is creating an impediment in the way of justice. This prerequisite element requires a new wider approach. With a wider approach towards the definition of genocide, the paper focuses on the General Assembly Resolution 96 (I), which resembles the intention behind the enactment of the Genocide Convention and proposes P3 objectives for the Right to Intervene along with a strategic model for implementing precautionary and preventive approach to hinder future occurrence of genocide and mass atrocities. The purpose of the paper is to focus on precautionary approach and international co-operation for the prevention of genocide.

From Reaction to Resilience in Mass Atrocity Prevention: An Analysis of the 2013 UN Report The Responsibility to Protect: State Responsibility and Prevention

This article analyzes the 2013 UN Secretary-General's report, The Responsibility to Protect: State Responsibility and Prevention. By presenting a framework for prevention that incorporates both risk factors and sources of resilience, the report advocates an understanding of why it is that some states do not experience mass atrocities. By doing so, it is the first policy document to explore in detail the notion that local and national actors are the primary agents of long-term (structural) prevention. This article demonstrates how the report is conceptually distinct from previous framings of structural prevention. It then provides a brief evaluation of the report, using illustrations from Botswana and Zanzibar to highlight its strengths and limitations.

The Role of csos in Promoting Human Rights Protection, Mass Atrocities Prevention, and Civilian Protection in Armed Conflicts

The West Africa region is arguably the most turbulent region in Africa; from the civil wars of Liberia and Sierra Leone to the political disputes in Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Guinea Bissau and recently Mali; the region has hosted the highest numbers of the United Nations (un) peacekeeping missions with mixed results. While the responsibility of peace, security and ensuring human protection resides with governments, Civil Society Organizations (csos) have demonstrated their capacity to complement government’s efforts in peace and security; and political leadership across the world has come to realise the strength of csos in anticipating, preventing and resolving conflicts because of their in-depth knowledge of context and expertise in working closely with communities. This paper assesses the contributions of csos towards the promotion of human rights protection, mass atrocities prevention and civilian protection in conflict-affected areas in West Africa; and argues for continued involvement of csos in human protection.

The African Union as a Norm Entrepreneur: The Limits of Human Protection and Mass Atrocities Prevention

This article will argue that despite its role as a norm entrepreneur the African Union (au), when analysed through the un Secretary-General’s 3-Pillar framework of responsibility, has only had limited success and faced significant constraints in promoting Pan-African norms relating to sovereignty and non-interference, governance and development in order to achieve human protection and the prevention of mass atrocities. Human protection refers to protection of civilians from human rights abuses with a particular focus on mass atrocity crimes. This article will also assess the evolving au-un partnership and conclude by assessing the limits of norm building and propose strategies for enhancing human protection in Africa.

Southeast Asian Regionalism, Norm Promotion and Capacity Building for Human Protection: An Overview

This article provides an overview of how the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (asean) has responded to human protection issues such as human rights, mass atrocities prevention, and civilian protection in armed conflicts. It examines the evolution and dynamics of asean’s regionalism and the factors that shaped and transformed its norms. While asean has adopted the language of human security and human protection, traditional norms of sovereignty and non-interference remain sticky. The pluralist nature of asean also limits the organization from responding effectively to crisis situations within member states such as identity-based conflicts. However, there are also opportunities for continuing engagement on human protection issues with various stakeholders at the regional and domestic levels. Some asean member states are more open to mainstreaming the principle of Responsibility to Protect in the agenda of asean and recognize the importance of building the capacity of member states in preventing mass atrocities.

Building the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in the asean through Multi-Focal Norm Entrepreneurship

Women, Peace and Security (wps) as a global agenda has gained traction since it was institutionalized in the United Nations Security Council fifteen years ago. By December 2014, 46 out of 193 Member States of the United Nations have adopted their National Action Plans to systematically implement their respective country commitments to wps. To date, 24 of the countries with National Action Plans are in Europe while 13 are in Africa; the Asia Pacific Region has 6 and the Americas have 3. In Southeast Asia, only the Philippines has developed a National Action Plan within the framework of the wps while other countries integrated it in the existing broad policy and programmatic frames such as addressing violence against women. At the level of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (asean), taking on the agenda of women, peace and security has yet to move beyond communicative rhetoric. This paper is an attempt to explore how wps can be made part of the regional agenda on human protection and mass atrocities prevention, by mapping out discursive and institutional entry points within several asean Member States and within asean itself through the idea of multi-focal norm entrepreneurship.

Beyond the Responsibility to Protect

Kurt Mills and David Jason Karp, eds. (2015). Human Rights Protection in Global Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, 336 pp., $100 hardcover (ISBN: 978-1-137-46316-6). This volume, edited by Kurt Mills and David Jason Karp, explores the responsibilities that states and non-state actors have for the protection of human rights in global politics. The volume offers a broad, multidisciplinary investigation of the subject, with contributions from scholars and practitioners from a number of fields, including political science, International Relations, law, philosophy, sociology, history, and English. The book explores a number of questions: 1. Who is responsible for human rights protection in global politics? 2. How should responsibility for human rights protection be conceptualized? 3. What rights and categories of rights are covered by the responsibilities for human rights protection in global politics? 4. Are existing legal and institutional mechanisms effective in promoting the human rights protective responsibilities of various global actors? The international legal doctrine Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which asserts that the international community has a responsibility to prevent mass atrocities, provides a normative and conceptual framework through which the book’s chapters investigate these questions. The R2P doctrine, advanced at the 2005 World Summit, represents a prevailing conception of responsibility for human rights protection in global politics. Specifically, the World Summit Outcomes Document, endorsed by the UN General Assembly in 2005, asserts that individual states have the responsibility to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity (paragraph 138), and that UN institutions also have a responsibility to protect that may be fulfilled via diplomatic, humanitarian, or other peaceful means (paragraph 139). Under R2P, any decision to authorize a military response to mass atrocities would be made in the UN Security Council in accordance with the provisions of the UN Charter, including chapter 7. In this regard, the operational and political constraints that limit the extent to which the international … debra.delaet{at}drake.edu