Be sure to check out what’s sure to be a lively event today at the U.S. Institute of Peace – Mobilizing the Will to Intervene: Leadership and Action to Prevent Mass Atrocities. The panel, scheduled from 1 – 3p.m., will be webcast live at the link above, and highlights will be featured on USIP’s Twitter feed, @usip.
Four years after the United Nations endorsed the Responsibility to Protect, or R2P – a doctrine that revamped the understanding of when the international community can intervene in a country where the government has shirked its duty to protect its citizens – countries are still very slow to react when mass atrocities are being committed. A new report examines the missing ingredient that leaves atrocities smoldering despite the international legal imperative that countries took on by endorsing the R2P: the political will to intervene.
The Will to Intervene Project, or W2I, based at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, looked at how to operationalize the R2P. Drawing on lessons from the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the 1999 Kosovo crisis, the W2I generated a list of recommendations for government officials, legislators, civil society, and the media about how to build the political will to prevent mass atrocities.
Today, the U.S. Institute for Peace will host a panel discussion with the W2I’s co-director, Lieutenant General (ret.) Romeo Dallaire, who served as the commander of the U.N. mission in Rwanda during the genocide. Lt. Gen. Dallaire will be joined by former U.S. government officials. Here’s the full line-up:
- Lieut. General (retired) Roméo Dallaire, Senior Fellow, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies; Co-Director, Will to Intervene Project
- Michael Gerson, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Global Engagement
- Andrew Natsios, Distinguished Professor, Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service
- John Prendergast, Co-founder, the Enough Project
- Tara Sonenshine (Opening Remarks), Executive Vice President, U.S. Institute of Peace
- James Traub (Moderator), Contributing Writer, New York Times Magazine