Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation

NEW YORK, April 30, 2013 – Amid growing awareness of the need for effective policy to prevent genocide and mass atrocities, the Auschwitz Institute today releases a summary of the proceedings of the February conference “Deconstructing Prevention: The Theory, Policy, and Practice of Mass Atrocity Prevention.”

Co-hosted by the Auschwitz Institute and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law Program in Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Studies, the two-day conference aimed to examine the field’s underlying assumptions and advance a common understanding of atrocity prevention among the academic, policy, and activist communities.

The first day of the conference brought together 23 scholars and practitioners, from nine countries and a broad range of disciplines, to discuss drafts of their contributions to an edited volume on mass atrocity prevention. Tentatively slated for publication in 2014, the volume will serve as an authoritative work on the topic for students, scholars, policymakers, advocates, and journalists.

Read more.

Download the report here.

NEW YORK, April 29, 2013 – Continuing its push to mainstream genocide prevention across the policymaking spectrum, the Auschwitz Institute this month created the Development and Mass Atrocity Prevention Community of Practice under the aegis of the Global Forum on Law, Justice and Development at the World Bank.

The Community of Practice was formed on the basis of an April 18, 2013, event in Washington, DC, titled "Preventing Mass Atrocities Through Development Policies: A Roundtable on Economic, Social and Legal Aspects," held as part of the IMF-WB Civil Society Forum. The session was co-sponsored by the Auschwitz Institute, the Bellagio Forum for Sustainable Development, the Budapest Centre for the International Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, and the Office of the World Bank Executive Director for Germany.

Read more.

To listen to a recording of the April 18 roundtable, click here.

NEW YORK, April 24, 2013 – The Paraguayan government last week in Asunción launched a national mechanism for genocide prevention to formulate policy and coordinate government response to potential risks of genocide domestically.

The mechanism, comprising 15 institutions, will operate under the umbrella of the Latin American Network for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, created by 18 countries of Central and South America with the Auschwitz Institute in March 2012. The first national mechanism for genocide prevention in the Latin American Network was established last year by Argentina.

Read more.

NEW YORK, April 16, 2013 – Auschwitz Institute executive director Tibi Galis stressed the need for civil society to help governments protect their populations from genocide, at an event on Sunday marking the 19th anniversary of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which more than half a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slain by Hutu extremists in the space of just three months.

In his keynote speech to an audience that included Rwandan survivors, Galis said that as much as is known about the causes of genocide and the urgency of addressing them, most governments are still not prepared to prevent it. He noted the roots of today’s efforts to prevent genocide in the failures to prevent the atrocities of the 1990s, specifically Rwanda, Srebrenica, and Kosovo. Explaining the origin of the Auschwitz Institute, whose programs date back to 2008, Galis said: “What we took away as an assumption is we expect our governments to do the right thing but without giving them the tools to do the right thing.”

Read more.

NEW YORK, April 3, 2013 – Amid the current stalemate over Security Council action to bring mass atrocities to an end, a recent forum in Canada focused on the potential for progress in national policy for genocide prevention.

Auschwitz Institute director Tibi Galis, speaking on a panel February 28 in Ottawa, sponsored by the Canadian International Council and the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Prevention of Genocide and Other Crimes Against Humanity, emphasized the need for governments to “[make] the transition from discourse to actual public policy. Our governments, unfortunately, have been very good at discourse related to mass atrocities now going back for several decades and centuries, but not too much public policy that specifically target[s] this issue has been developed.”

Read more, including the transcript of Tibi Galis's comments at the panel.