Course: Genocide and Group Hostility
Module 3: Prevention
Mass atrocities can be prevented, but how? And who is supposed to do so?
Preventing mass atrocities before they happen is not an easy task. For this reason, the international community has come up with regulations and frameworks to guide prevention efforts. Since atrocities need time and preparation, recognizing warning signals of impending atrocities can help with their prevention.
Early-warning indicators
Through risk assessments and warning indicators, atrocity crimes can be predicted and can thus be prevented. Depending on when prevention efforts begin, these measures can consist of structural prevention, direct prevention, and late-stage prevention. While possible, effective prevention requires grounded knowledge, continuous collaboration, and solid frameworks.
While risk assessment and early warning mechanisms are similar and often used interchangeably, they differ in clear ways:
Risk assessments:
- predictive, based on previous conduct,
- focus on state-level indicators, often using quantitative data,
- examine structures that rarely change abruptly (political (in)stability, prior atrocities, and widespread discrimination),
- overall picture of the risk of atrocities,
- highlight situations where atrocities likely could happen.
Early warnings:
- causal, grounded in current events,
- focus in-depth on high-risk cases,
- monitor situations of insecurity or elevated risk,
- more dynamic, context-specific, and sensitive to rapid developments,
- focus on escalating activity, tipping points, and triggering acts or rhetoric,
- indicate with a higher likelihood whether and when atrocities will happen.
Leadership and regime
- Polarisation of elites.
- Upcoming and contested elections.
- Public commemoration of past crimes.
- Rapid change in government leadership (assassination, coup).
- Removing moderates from leadership.
- Attacks (arrests, torture, killings) on political leaders or other prominent figures.
Discrimination and rhetoric
- Increased hate speech, apocalyptic public rhetoric.
- Popular mobilisation against groups; labelling groups as enemies.
- Discriminatory or emergency legislation.
- Increase in repressive practices, removal of political rights.
- Segregation and separation of groups.
Conflict dynamics
- Increase in irregular armed forces and security forces, increase in opposition capacity.
- Increase in stockpiling and transfer of weapons.
- Commencement and resumption of armed conflict, spillover from neighbouring countries.
- Lack of opportunities to flee.
- Impunity for past crimes.
(To read more on RA and EW mechanisms, read this article from Ellen E. Stensrud)
Gender Perspective & Early Warning Signs
Gender influences the preparation and perpetration of mass atrocities. Paying attention to gender inequalities, hateful rhetoric, and escalating domestic violence can help identify the risk of atrocities.
Since mass atrocities are influenced by gender dynamics and gender roles, early-warning indicators that do not consider gender dimensions may have blind spots. To avoid this risk and ensure effective prevention, gender-sensitive and gender-specific warning indicators have been produced by human rights advocates such as Louise Allen.
To improve existing early-warning frameworks, she proposed to monitor indicators such as:
- Increases in sexist, homophobic or misogynistic hate speech and propaganda;
- The targeting of women by state and non-state actors, both online and physically;
- Changes and growing restrictions on civil society, in particular women’s organisations, dress codes, and mobility;
- Resistance to women’s participation in peacebuilding/conflict prevention or resolution efforts;
- Sudden drop in girls attending school due to security threats/attacks on girls schools;
- Changes in sex work/survival sex (forced or voluntary);
- Changes to access in emergency health services.
Gender-sensitive Approach to Prevention
Most atrocity prevention approaches tend to ignore the many ways in which gender affects atrocity crimes. Through gender-sensitive prevention, instead, it becomes possible to target issues that would otherwise go unnoticed.
Responses to Mass Atrocities
Mass atrocities can be predicted and prevented, but guidelines and political will are necessary to make sure this can be done effectively. Multiple conventions, documents, and institutions exist to prevent and punish atrocity crimes, such as the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine.
The UN Genocide Convention states that every country has a duty to prevent and punish genocide:
Article I: The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a global political commitment to prevent the worst forms of violence and human rights abuses, guiding reasons and procedures for atrocity prevention.
Affirmed unanimously at the United Nations’ (UN) 2005 World Summit, R2P emerged as a response to the international community’s failure to halt the atrocities committed in the Balkans and Rwanda during the 1990s. It builds on states’ pre-existing international humanitarian and human rights obligations to prevent and punish genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.
Although not legally binding per se, the R2P doctrine provides useful guidance on the scope of states’ political commitments to protect civilian populations.
Since 2009, the UN Secretary-General (UNSG) has issued yearly reports on R2P. The first report laid out a three-pillar strategy for the implementation of this norm.
These three pillars, which guide prevention approaches, make sure that each approach is weighed against the specific circumstances of each case. This way, the primary responsibility rests upon each state to protect their own populations, explicitly placing R2P within the boundaries of the UN security framework.
- Pillar One: Each state has the primary responsibility to protect its population from atrocity crimes.
- Pillar Two: The international community must assist and encourage individual states to fulfill their responsibility to protect, when they are unwilling or unable to do so.
- Pillar Three: In case a state fails to meet its obligations, the international community may respond in a ‘timely and decisive’ manner by using the range of peaceful and non-peaceful means available under Chapters VI, VII and VIII of the UN Charter.
ICJ rulings on the duty to prevent
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the highest international legal entity. Disputes over states’ obligations to prevent and punish genocide can be referred to the ICJ, according to article 9 of the Genocide Convention. This gives the ICJ the highest international authority in interpreting the Genocide Convention.
Recent genocide cases:
The International Court of Justice has advanced provisional measures on its application of the Genocide Convention both in Myanmar and in Palestine’s Gaza Strip. Myanmar and Israel have been instructed to ensure the protection and prevention of civilian populations (Rohingyas for Myanmar and Palestinians for Israel), as well as the cessation of violence.
Here are the ICJ reports:
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), established in 1945, is the principal judicial body of the United Nations. It handles contentious cases between states that voluntarily submit disputes for resolution, as well as provides advisory opinions on legal questions referred by UN organs and specialized agencies. The ICJ plays a crucial role in interpreting and clarifying international law, setting legal precedents that influence the practices of states. It does not have automatic jurisdiction; it only hears cases where the parties have agreed to its jurisdiction, either through treaties or special agreements.
Role of different stakeholders
Individual states, humanitarian and legal entities, and the international community at large each have a different role in preventing atrocity crimes. Even so, it is often difficult to reach a consensus on when to intervene, as well as what counts as legitimate intervention at all.
The question of who is supposed to prevent atrocities, and when their intervention is deemed necessary, has been answered by the R2P norm through a hierarchy of intervention. As outlined in the norm, in order of priority, prevention and intervention should be done by:
- Country where atrocities are about to happen/are happening
- Neighboring states in the region
- International community at large
This hierarchy narrows down when prevention is allowed for members of the international community, avoiding potential threats to states’ sovereignty. As a rule, the international community should help states become self-sufficient in preventing mass atrocities.
Education as prevention strategy
Learning from the past is necessary for prevention. Education alone cannot prevent genocide but it can, together with other social actors, contribute to making it more difficult for those who want to pit people against each other based on their identity. Women, civil society, and religious institutions play an important part in preventing mass atrocities.
Questions for reflection and discussion
- How can different stakeholders work together to implement effective genocide prevention measures?
- In what ways can the inclusion of a gender perspective strengthen early warning systems for mass atrocity prevention?
- What are some potential barriers and dilemmas to early intervention?
- How does media coverage influence international response? And what role does geopolitical interest play in determining which atrocities receive attention and intervention?
- Case study discussion: How can the cases discussed in this course help us recognize warning signs and develop better prevention strategies? What lessons can be learned from the successes and failures of R2P interventions in past crises?
Additional Resources
Early warning and Risk assessment
- ICHR topic page: Mass atrocity prevention
- Website: Mass Atrocity Responses
- Stensrud, Ellen E. 2024. Risk assessment and early-warning systems (link)
- Allen, Louise. 2021. “Overview of Gender Responsive Early Warning Systems – Progress and Gaps.” Asia Pacific Partnership for Atrocity Prevention. (link)
R2P and prevention frameworks
- ICHR resource guide: Atrocity prevention frameworks
- UN Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes (link)
- Global Centre for R2P – Framework for Action for the Responsibility to Protect: A Resource for States (link)
- Report: APR2P – Centralising Gender in Mass Atrocity Prevention: A Tool for Action in the Asia Pacific Region (link)
