"R2P" Involves More Than Military Intervention

"The humanitarian impulse that prompted military action in Libya and the Ivory Coast has led many to point to an international principle known as the 'responsibility to protect' and cite both operations as proof of its growing influence. Yet, the responsibility to protect, or R2P, is a complex framework for mass atrocity prevention and response, and there is a danger in conflating its success with that of recent military engagements." -- from Website

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A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide

"A Problem from Hell is both a history of America's reactions to the genocides of the twentieth century and a history of the American government's understanding of genocide itself. Written by Samantha Power, a former war correspondent and executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, A Problem from Hell synthesizes interviews and documentary evidence into a readable narrative." -- from Website

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Beyond Libya: A World Ready to Respond to Mass Violence

"The decision to authorize force to counter Gaddafi's explicit threats was steeped in the rationale of a political principle known as the Responsibility to Protect, or R2P. Its final outcome will undoubtedly impact the way global leaders view their self-professed responsibility to protect civilian populations from genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and war crimes." -- from Website

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Ceasefire

In a violent conflict, the first step toward negotiation is some type of ceasefire, which freezes the conflict in place and stops the killing.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Christiane Amanpour Reveals Stories of Those Who Tried to Stop Genocide

"From ethnic slaughters in Armenia to the Holocaust to systematic terror and violence in Cambodia, Rwanda, Iraq and Darfur, CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour reports on the recurring nightmare of genocide and the largely unknown struggles of the heroes who witnessed evil -- and 'screamed bloody murder' for the international community to stop it... A new two-hour documentary, CNN Presents: Scream Bloody Murder, will premiere on Thursday, Dec. 4, [2009]." -- from Website

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Conflict Assessment

Conflict assessment is the first stage in the process of conflict management and resolution that begins by clarifying participants' interests, needs, positions, and issues and then engages stakeholders to find solutions.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Conflict Transformation Training as Intervention

This essay discusses the use of training as a means of conflict intervention, focusing especially on the author's work with both an external and local NGO in Manipur, India.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

The Genocide Convention was adopted by the UN in 1948 and defines genocide in legal terms; the culmination of years of campaigning by lawyer Raphael Lemkin.

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Deconstructing Political Will: Explaining the Failure to Prevent Deadly Conflict and Mass Atrocities

After the Holocaust, many said "never again." But then there was Rwanda. And Cambodia. And Darfur. And no one (at least for a long time) intervened. Why not? "Lack of political will" is a common answer. But what is "political will" and why is it absent when it is so needed? This article explores this question.

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Disarmament

Disarmament refers to limiting or eliminating the use of weapons. Disarming can defuse a dangerous situation because it is generally seen as a gesture of good intent. Disarmament often reduces fears and tensions and paves the way for greater cooperation. However, it is sometimes feared, as it is seen as leaving one open to attack from an enemy who has not also disarmed.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Entrepreneurship, Sovereignty, and Violent Social Conflict

This paper suggests ways in which the global system of the individual sovereign state can help address violent conflicts around the world. The sovereign state has been long studied in peace studies as being a driving factor in enacting or resolving violent conflicts. This article critiques aspects of the sovereign state model that is based on territorial-bases sovereignty and provides new concepts into global governance.

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Evaluation and Assessment of Interventions

Winston Churchill said, "True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information." This essay explains how evaluation can make interventions into intractable conflict more effective.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Expectations for International Mediation

Article Summary

Genocide

Invoked with a frequency, familiarity, and reverence rarely associated with instruments of law, the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide has come to embody the conscience of humanity. Yet nearly sixty years after it was drafted, the moral promise of the Genocide Convention has at best been only partially redeemed. While states have belatedly honoured their responsibility to punish genocide, they have shown no corresponding will to prevent it, as the treaty also requires.

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Genocide in International Law: the Crimes of Crimes

The 1948 Genocide Convention has suddenly become a vital legal tool in the international campaign against impunity. The succinct provisions of the Convention are now being interpreted in important judgements by the International Court of Justice, the ad hoc Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and a growing number of domestic courts. In this definitive work William A. Schabas focuses on the judicial interpretation of the Convention, debates in the International Law Commission, political statements in bodies like the General Assembly of the United Nations, and the growing body of case law. Detailed attention is given to the concept of protected groups, to the quantitative dimension of genocide, to problems of criminal prosecution including defenses and complicity, and to issues of international judicial cooperations such as extradition. He also explores the duty to prevent genocide, and the consequences this may have on the emerging law of humanitarian intervention.

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Human Rights

"The protection of fundamental human rights was a foundation stone in the establishment of the United States over 200 years ago. Since then, a central goal of U.S. foreign policy has been the promotion of respect for human rights, as embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The United States understands that the existence of human rights helps secure the peace, deter aggression, promote the rule of law, combat crime and corruption, strengthen democracies, and prevent humanitarian crises." -- from Website

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Humanitarian Aid and Development Assistance

Humanitarian aid is assistance given by an organization and/or foreign government to countries who are experiencing need because of mass migration, hunger, disease, and/or other crisis conditions.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Humanitarian NGOs in Conflict Intervention

Article Summary

If I Look at the Mass, I Will Never Act: Psychic Numbing and Genocide

Every episode of mass murder is unique and raises unique obstacles to intervention. But the repetitiveness of such atrocities, ignored by powerful people and nations, and by the general public, calls for explanations that may reflect some fundamental deficiency in our humanity.

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International Intervention and the Severity of Genocides and Politicides

This study examines the effectiveness of overt military intervention in slowing or stopping the killing during ongoing instances of genocide or politicide... The results suggest that interventions that directly challenge the perpetrator or aid the target of the brutal policy are the only effective type of military responses, increasing the probability that the magnitude of the slaughter can be slowed or stopped." -- from Website

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International Regimes

This essay provides a brief overview of regimes -- what they are, what they do and how they do it (taking into account different theoretical views). It also explores questions that remain about their contributions to international relations, conflict prevention, and peace.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Intervention Processes

Most intractable conflicts require outside intervention in order to be constructively transformed or resolved. This essay introduces the many forms of intervention and discusses their strengths and weaknesses.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Large-Scale Communication

This essay discusses ways to communicate to large groups and even whole societies. While the media is the most traditional way of doing this, other approaches are also sometimes utilized, such as community dialogues or even "national conversations."

Beyond Intractability Essay

Lustration

The term "lustration" derives from the Latin for "purification." In this essay, it refers to a means by which some countries deal with a legacy of human rights abuses.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Making "Never Again" a Reality

"The Responsibility to Protect doctrine, introduced in 2001 and ratified by the world in 2005, reinforces the idea that nations must protect rather than harm their populations and the rest of the world has an obligation to help nations carry out this protection mandate and intervene when necessary to halt genocide and mass atrocities. The International Criminal Court, created in 1998, and other international tribunals can (and do) punish individuals found guilty of creating and/or carrying out genocide and mass atrocities." -- from Website

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Mass Atrocities and the International Community: The Multilateral Framework for Prevention and Response

"Operations in Libya and Cote d'Ivoire have reinforced the centrality of the UN Security Council in authorizing coercive responses to mass atrocity threats -- and rightly so. From a legal standpoint, the Security Council remains the sole 'right authority' to sanction the use of force by any state outside the parameters of self-defense. Politically, Security Council approval is even more important." -- from Website

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Mediating Evil, War, and Terrorism: The Politics of Conflict

This essay discusses alternative ways that political systems, individual peacebuilders, and "regular" people can address violence and evil, suggesting that some approaches perpetuate or even escalate the evil, while other approaches disarm it and render it an ineffective mode of action.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Meta-Conflict Resolution

Many conflict resolvers emphasize mediation, dialogue, or problem solving workshops as solutions to conflict. But intractable conflicts usually need a much more comprehensive approach. This article describes such an approach and articulates the various roles that must be carried out to successfully transform these conflicts.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Military Intervention

A generation ago, the terms "military intervention" and "conflict resolution" would almost never have been uttered in the same breath. Militaries have intervened in the affairs of other countries time and time again, but rarely have they done so in an attempt to end conflicts -- until recently.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Never Again, for Real

"...[P]reventing genocide and mass atrocities is not an idealistic addition to our core foreign policy agenda. It is a moral and strategic imperative."

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Options for the Prevention of Genocide: Strategies and Examples for Policy-Makers

This article explains the process of genocide as well as the process of prevention, explaining the proper instances of prevention at particular violent stages. The authors use case study examples to illustrate the idea of the mitigation and prevention process.

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Peaceful Change Strategies

Many distinguish between the "soft path" of negotiation and the "hard path" of force. This essay argues that this is a false dichotomy and that both strategies should be combined in order to transform conflict.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Preventing Genocide: How the Early Use of Force Might have Succeeded in Rwanda

"Based on the presentations by the panel and other research, the author believes that a modern force of 5,000 troops, drawn primarily from one country and sent to Rwanda sometime between April 7 and 21, 1994, could have significantly altered the outcome of the conflict. Although the organized combatant factions in Rwanda were fairly capable light infantry and such an operation would have entailed significant risk, the introduction of a combat force large enough to seize, at one time, key objectives all over the country would have, in the words of one senior officer, 'thrown a wet blanket over an emerging fire.' More specifically, forces appropriately trained, equipped, and commanded, and introduced in a timely manner, could have stemmed the violence in and around the capital, prevented its spread to the countryside, and created conditions conducive to the cessation of the civil war between the RPF and RGF." -- from Website

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Prevention: Core to the Responsibility to Protect

"The crux of the humanitarian intervention debate had always been the tension between the moral impulse to stop widespread, systematic violence against civilians and the principles of 'non interference' [sic] and 'sovereign equality' that bind the contemporary world order. In a fundamental reframing of this debate, ICISS internalized the logic of 'sovereignty as responsibility,' pioneered by noted Sudanese scholar and diplomat, Francis Deng, and inverted the premise of the intervention argument, advocating not for a 'right to intervene,' but rather a 'responsibility to protect.'" -- from Website

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Public Diplomacy

Public diplomacy provides a means of influencing foreign publics without the use of force. This brief article describes its history, discusses how it has been used by the U.S. in the "War on Terror," and gives a list of "best practices."

Beyond Intractability Essay

Ripeness

A conflict is said to be ripe once both parties realize they cannot win, and the conflict is costing them too much to continue. This tends to be a good time to open negotiations.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Safe Havens

In recent conflicts, the civilian casualty rate has reached nine of 10 casualties, compared with only one of 10 at the beginning of the 20th century. Safe-havens are protected locations where refugees and war victims can come to escape the violence in their communities.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Sanctions: Diplomatic Tool, or Warfare by Other Means?

Sanctions are punishments that are used to try to influence other groups or nation-states' behaviors. Examples are embargoes and prohibitions from attending international events. This essay describes the pluses and minuses of using sanctions to influence another's behavior.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Save Darfur

This site focuses on the coalition to end genocide in Darfur.

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Scream Bloody Murder

"Having reported on mass atrocities around the world, this time Amanpour traced the personal accounts of those who tried to stop the slaughter. The yearlong CNN investigation found that instead of using a U.N. treaty outlawing genocide as a springboard to action, political leaders have invoked reason after reason to make intervention seem unnecessary, pointless and even counter-productive." -- from Website

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Stop Genocide Now

"Stop Genocide Now (SGN) seeks to change the way the world responds to genocide by putting a face to the numbers of dead, dying and displaced.SGN is a grassroots community dedicated to working to protect populations in grave danger of violence, death and displacement resulting from genocide. Through active education, advocacy and policy change SGN resolves to change the way the world responds to genocide. SGN is currently focused on creating awareness and action to stop the genocide in Darfur and deal appropriately with its aftermath. All of our projects focus on and utilize the strength and power in grassroots connectivity." -- from Website

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The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention: Genocide in Rwanda

Combining unprecedented analyses of the genocides progression and the logistical limitations of humanitarian military intervention, Kuperman reaches a startling conclusion: even if Western leaders had ordered an intervention as soon as they became aware of a nationwide genocide in Rwanda, the intervention forces would have arrived too late to save more than a quarter of the 500,000 Tutsi ultimately killed. Serving as a cautionary message about the limits of humanitarian intervention, the books concluding chapters address lessons for the future.

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The Prevention and Intervention of Genocide

Samuel Totten brings together in one comprehensive collection the research and findings in various fields, such as political science, sociology, history, and psychology, to enable specialists in genocide studies, peace studies, and conflict resolution to benefit from the insights of a diverse range of scholars and foster an understanding of how the various components of genocide studies connect.

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The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty

"We have made some real progress, which I will describe in this talk, in getting apparent consensus at the highest levels of government that there is something wrong with the view that it's no one's business but their own if states murder or forcibly displace large numbers of their own citizens, or allow atrocity crimes to be committed by one group against another on their soil. But when it comes to getting that understanding deeply embedded in the consciousness and practice of states everywhere, and -- it seems -- into the minds of even university professors everywhere, we still have some distance to go." -- from Website

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The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty

The report's "central theme ...[is] the idea that sovereign states have a responsibility to protect their own citizens from avoidable catastrophe -- from mass murder and rape, from starvation -- but that when they are unwilling or unable to do so, that responsibility must be borne by the broader community of states. The nature and dimensions of that responsibility are argued out, as are all the questions that must be answered about who should exercise it, under whose authority, and when, where and how. We hope very much that the report will break new ground in a way that helps generate a new international consensus on these issues." -- from Website

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The Timor-Leste Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) - Report

"The Timor-Leste Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR -- the Portuguese acronym) -- was set up in 2001 and functioned from 2002 until its dissolution in December 2005. It was an independent, statutory authority led by seven East Timorese Commissioners and mandated by UNTAET Regulation 2001/10 to undertake truth seeking for the period 1974-1999, facilitate community reconciliation for less serious crimes, and report on its work and findings and make recommendations. Its 2,800 page report entitled 'Chega!' was presented to the President, Parliament and Government of Timor-Leste following its completion in October 2005." -- from Website

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The Trials and Tests Faced by R2P

"In a snapshot of the current debate surrounding the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and global efforts to prevent large-scale violence against civilians, Libya and Syria would dominate a frame of amorphous figures with blurred edges, each shifting haphazardly in unknown directions." -- from Website

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Track II (Citizen) Diplomacy

Track II or citizen diplomacy are peacebuilding efforts undertaken by unofficial (usually non-govermental) people who try to build cross-group understanding and even develop ideas for conflict resolution that have not been broaded in official channels.

Beyond Intractability Essay

World Needs Strategic Approach to Atrocity Prevention

"The recent referendum on independence in southern Sudan and mounting tensions over the presidential leadership stalemate in the Ivory Coast remind us once again that too many people around the world live their lives under threat of large-scale killing and atrocities. While the immediate vote was generally calm, much of the last decade in Sudan has been aptly described as 'genocide in slow motion.' These crises and others (Congo is a prominent example) evoke the urgent need for a comprehensive international approach to prevent the use of mass violence as a political tool." -- from Website

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