1. Alex Bellamy
Policy Analysis Brief for
The Stanley Foundation
2011
Mass Atrocities and Armed Conflict:Links, Distinctions and Implications for the Responsibility to Protect

2. Key issue -
How to give effect to the prevention component of RtoP
What is the relationship between mass atrocities and armed conflict?
How does RtoP relate to existing prevention agendas?
What are the key similarities, differences and pitfalls to avoid?
How might we implement RtoP?
3. Key argument -
Atrocity prevention best achieved by adding an atrocity prevention lens to inform, and where appropriate, direct decision-making across the full spectrum of preventive activity
Principal purposes of the lens
Identify countries at risk and specific factors that increase/mitigate risk in a given country
Advise decision-making and program planning
Structural and direct components:
Providing advice that helps tailor existing programs (e.g. development, rule of law, governance, environment, displaced persons) to addressing atrocity-risk factors and identifies related areas where such programs might add value to prevention
In crises, the lens would foreground atrocity prevention and coordinate coherent multidimensional prevention strategies (much like the convening authority)
4. Prevention DilemmaAre conflict prevention and atrocity prevention linked?
The debate:
ICISS and Annan conflict prevention part of atrocity prevention
IPI, Ban, Evans (more recent) agendas should not be conflated
Problem 1 what is the relationship between war and atrocities?
Problem 2 how distinct are the prevention agendas?
Conflict prevention
Genocide prevention
RtoP prevention
ICISS
Ban Ki-moon
5. Armed Conflict and Mass Atrocities
6. Key points -
Findings -
Implications -
67% of all major cases of mass atrocities occurred in a context of armed conflict
33% occurred outside context of armed conflict
Common contexts for peacetime atrocities:
State-directed suppression
Communal violence
Post-war retribution
Peacetime atrocities have become less frequent
All except five began prior to 1980
Of these, four had recent experience of armed conflict/atrocities (DRC, Burundi [twice], Myanmar)
Since 1980 only 15% of new episodes occurred outside armed conflict
Strong link between armed conflict and mass atrocities and getting stronger
But:
Not all armed conflicts produce atrocities
Many atrocities occur outside armed conflict
Atrocity prevention should:
1. Reduce risk of armed conflict (reducing overall risk of atrocities)
2. Reduce risk of peacetime atrocities
3. Reduce risk of atrocities being committed within context of armed conflict
7. Mass Atrocity Prevention
8. Swiss Cheese...Graphic by Jakob von HoldersteinHoltermann (Human Rights Review 2010)
Cheese = layers of societal resilience to mass atrocities
Holes = failures in local, national, international institutions
When they align, the hazard materialises
Human institutions are fallible (always have holes)
Best way to reduce risk: add additional layers of resilience
9. Contending Prevention Agendas
Tendency to compartmentalise prevention agendas:
Conflict prevention
Genocide prevention
Atrocity prevention
Strong overlap between them especially conflict prevention and atrocity prevention (c. 85% the same)
Similar structural measures identified by both (spanning economic, governance, security human rights, social)
Similar direct measures(early warning, diplomacy, sanctions, inducements, legal, military)
Why cant we separate the agendas?
Structural conditions that give rise to armed conflict (esp. civil wars) are similar to those that give rise to mass atrocities
These conditions are interconnected and not easily separated
Direct prevention of all varieties is about changing behaviour
It makes no sense to consider reducing the tools available to policy makers
There is no need, therefore, for a new repertoire of preventive measures to serve RtoP
BUT: this does not means that conflict prevention tools and methods can be simply carried across to atrocity prevention
10. An Atrocity Prevention Lens
Preventive activity should be guided by atrocity-specific advice because
Atrocities and conflicts are not perfectly related
Preventing conflicts and atrocities may require different things (e.g. accommodation v. coercion)
Undue attention to conflict prevention may obscure the needs of atrocity prevention (e.g. Rwanda (Arusha), Bosnia)
Conflict prevention may inadvertently create incentives for atrocities (groups seeking place at the table)
This should be fed into existing prevention frameworksand should aim at producing cohesive and carefully tailored policies and programs
An atrocity prevention lens would:
Carefully assess individual situations to:
Identify specific risk factors
Identify local sources of resilience
Utilise existing capacities and tools through tailored programs to address risks and support resilience
Make the most effective use of scarce resources by targeting and tailoring existing capacities
Be applied at every stage of the conflict cycle providing a moving picture rather than one-off snapshot
Ensure that prevention measures and capacities are carefully tailored to suit:
Specific context
Risk factors
Goal of atrocity prevention
11. Step 1: Identifying the Risk
Existing literature points to these as most common risk factors associated with atrocities
We can use this to generate a reasonably accurate picture of risk
E.g. based on data available in 1997, we identified 10 countries as extreme risk.Of those, 9 experienced atrocities in the following decade (exception Burundi)
20 countries identified as high risk 47% succumbed to atrocities
This type of modelling helps identify areas needing closer field-based analysis BUT CANNOT
Identify when or where atrocities will erupt
12. Tailoring Structural Prevention
Structural prevention
Most UN in-country programs contribute to structural prevention
Private business, NGOs and bilateral aid also contribute
Tailored prevention involves examining the prevention value of this work and coordinating it effectively
Atrocity prevention lens should help UN system deliver as one on atrocity prevention
Step 1: Needs assessment: Develop a shared methodology to inform planning across UN system
Identify the presence and nature of local/national/regional risk factors
Identify and assess sources of resilience
Assess national capacity and identify protection gaps
Map existing preventive activities (local and international)
Identify areas needing additional support
Needs assessment needs to be a rolling program of assessment and reassessment that feeds into existing program/policy planning
OSAPG/RtoP is most obvious as lead office but the process needs to be consultative
Initial research and drafting could be sub-contracted by OSAPG/RtoP
Method might be usefully shared with regional partners
13. Step 2: Monitoring and Assessing Escalation
Identifying when and where risk will escalate to imminent threat requires careful monitoring and field-based research
Manifesting Risk requires
Reason perpetrators must have a purpose
Means require a sufficient number of people with capacity and will to commit atrocities
Opportunity
weakened internal/international restraints
Chaos /war makes mass killing easier to hide (eg. Armenia 1915; RPF/ADFL in DRC)
Where risk is high and these conditions exist, atrocities very likely UNLESS:
Regime has capacity to end crisis before resorting to atrocities
International engagement either:
Resolves problem
Deters atrocities by increasing costs associated with them
14. Steps of EscalationGuide only real cases not so simple!
15. Cycle of Impunity
16. Responding to Escalation Late and Later Prevention
Responding to Crises
Preventing Atrocities after Armed Conflict has Begun
Important that atrocity-specific analysis be fed directly into policy making process at every stage
OSAPG/RtoP advise UN policy planning
Dialogue with member states and regional arrangements
Use of convening authority when danger judged to be acute
OSAPG/RtoP advice directly to the SG
OSAPG/RtoP most appropriate lead in developing system-wide (narrow but deep) responses for atrocity-specific
Important to calibrate measures with long-term programming
Key challenges:
Much greater risk; short escalatory timeframe
Pitfalls of pursing conflict resolution when atrocity prevention needed
More clarity needed on relationship between prevention and reaction, humanitarian aid, and PoC
Key capacities:
UN staff on the ground should be able to detect and communicate warning signs of future atrocities
UNHQ (OSAPG/RtoP?) should have capacity to monitor and assess field information in real time
Capacity for fast-tracking early warning, assessment, advice and decision-making
17. Recommendations
UN build on the strengthening of the OSAPG/RtoP
Strengthen capacity to advise on BOTH imminent crises and areas of risk where longer-term strategies required
Build capacity to provide detailed assessments of individual country risks and needs develop and share methodology
Provide advice to UN agencies, funds and programs about risks
Identify new and emerging conflicts that contain risk of atrocities and inform conflict prevention policymaking
Serve as a convening authority and enable coordinated atrocity-prevention planning in crisis situations
Use information from the field to provide live advice to field missions and peace operations
Develop a lessons learned capacity to identify best practice
Regional organizations
Strengthen dialogue and partnership with UN
Two-way provision of atrocity prevention related information
Cooperation in responding to imminent emergencies
Facilitate cooperation in implementing UNSC decisions
Examine ways of building an atrocity prevention lens
Incorporate regional arrangements into strategic planning/implementation of programs with structural prevention component (poss: expansion of regional offices)
National governments
Establish national RtoP/atrocity prevention focal points
18. Further research needed -
Prevention of atrocities once armed conflict under way
What factors influence whether a conflict, once started, will produce atrocities?
What measures (other than terminating the armed conflict) might be taken to mitigate this risk ?
Global audit of preventive capacity
Where are the relevant capacities?
Where are the gaps?
Tailoring programs for structural prevention
A methodology for risk assessment
How this works in practice (case studies)
Policies and programs to address specific threats
Best practice in direct prevention
Large n studies of (a) success; (b) failures; (c) not tried
Detailed case studies to see how it all hangs together
19. Thanks for your time