Though many believe that there should have been little doubt of his guilt, the conviction and verdict nonetheless were a welcome outcome of the protracted five year trial. There haven’t been many genocide rulings by the ICTY, and most of these cases have been heard long after the atrocities themselves occurred. The world has seen several other cases of genocide and mass atrocities since Bosnia, including ongoing atrocities against the Rohingya in Burma, where perpetrators have thus far escaped punishment.

Issuing an indictment for genocide is an extremely complicated ordeal for the international community. Around the world, most states are reluctant to make this accusation, often because it necessitates action to intervene. In fact, the United States did not ratify the 1951 Genocide Convention until 1988, when Kurdistan was facing genocide. Throughout history, the United States has failed time and time again to act in the face of international mass atrocities, often citing a lack of information as in the case of the Rwandan genocide. By the time the international community responds, it is often too late for the victims.

The ideal use of punishment is as a deterrent. Unfortunately, because so few perpetrators of genocide are actually punished, the evidence base for justice as a deterrent for future genocidaires leaves much to be desired. This was certainly the case for the Bosniaks. While Mladić’s conviction is a step in the right direction, the 8,000 deaths that he was personally charged with should have been prevented – and at the very least, the 1951 Genocide Convention should necessitate more preventative measures for the future.

Problematically, the United States has shifted attention away from these issues.  After inaugurating President Donald Trump, who largely advocates an “America First” foreign policy, the U.S. approach to humanitarian issues has shifted. Notably, the administration has sought to decrease the foreign aid budget – already less than 1% of the U.S. budget – by 31%.  The U.S. is not the only culprit, however – ludicrously, since its formation in 2006, the United Nations Human Rights Council has allowed genocidal and abusive countries like Burundi and Saudi Arabia to serve as members.  As one Burundian leader put it, “Burundians can die, as long as the Americans or Belgians are safe.”

Political movement across the globe over the past two years has shifted from that of international cooperation to nationalism.  While each government must take care of its own people, some state governments prove unwilling or unable to do so. When this is the case, the forgotten targets of ethnic cleansing and genocide need global citizens to step in and help them.  

It is time to begin treating this responsibility as a true obligation. World leaders have a responsibility to act in the face of mass atrocities and genocide, not to turn inward and ignore life outside their borders. Following the atrocities in Rwanda and the Balkans, the Canadian government convened the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which issued a report in which it was explained that all states have a Responsibility to Protect (R2P) those within their borders, and when they are unable or unwilling to do so, the burden falls to the international community. Today, the R2P doctrine represents a global commitment to the prevention of mass atrocities. However, leaders continue to fail at fulfilling this responsibility. Rather than waiting for leaders, we all can do more to advocate for those in need. There are several organizations, including STAND, Aegis Trust, and Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, dedicated to mobilizing activists and helping victims of human rights abuses. Everybody should get involved in one.

Ratko Mladić’s conviction was certainly deserved, but it was by no means a decisive victory. Two decades of waiting for a conviction serves as a reminder that more needs to be done. Genocide is a part of modern reality, and its denial must become a thing of the past. International law has not been strong enough to spur action, but domestic pressure could be the key and awareness is only a few clicks away.

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Mira Mehta is a writer and a student at Westfield High School.  In her spare time, she enjoys debating and running on the cross country team.  This is her first year as a member of the Communications Task Force at STAND.

At STAND, we understand that collaborating with other students strengthens our organization, furthers our mission, and allows us to produce more valuable and impactful work.  As such, we are excited to announce a new partnership between STAND and the R2P Student Journal at Leeds.

The Responsibility to Protect Student Journal is a global, student-led, free online journal that aims to provide a platform for undergraduate and postgraduate students to publish their academic work on R2P and related topics, including international humanitarian law, human rights, international criminal justice, and, genocide and mass atrocity prevention. The Journal was founded in 2015 by a group of students from the University of Leeds and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. After careful discussion, our organizations have decided to join forces to advance academic research on mass atrocity prevention, R2P, peacebuilding, and human rights.

Because STAND knows that approaches to genocide and mass atrocity prevention are multilateral and layered, we are thrilled to expand our existing genocide prevention initiatives into academia. Additionally, the R2P Student Journal looks forward to broadening its submission criteria to include atrocity prevention and peacebuilding.

This partnership will broaden the scope of the Journal, allow STAND representatives to both submit and be involved in the peer review process, will enlarge the Journal’s audience and number of potential collaborators, and will allow STAND and other advocacy organizations to inform forthcoming policies and campaigns with accurate research.

What are we looking for?

We are looking for excellent student essays and dissertation excerpts for the R2P Student Journal and short commentaries, analytical pieces, and creative work for our Blog. We welcome submissions on R2P-related topics including mass atrocity prevention, humanitarian intervention, international criminal justice, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, genocide, international humanitarian law, UN Security Council decision making. This is not an exhaustive list, so please get in touch with us if you are unsure of whether your work meets our admissibility criteria.

Author guidelines for Journal submissions

Word count: 2,500-6,000 words (footnotes and bibliography not included). Shorter pieces may be considered for the blog (see below).

Referencing: Please use the Harvard referencing style and include a full bibliographic reference list for each source quoted.

Plagiarism: If your essay was written as part of an assessment item for a course, we advise you submit it to the R2P Student Journal after your essay was marked so that you do not plagiarise yourself.

Language: Submissions must be in English. British or American spelling is acceptable but must be consistent. Please edit your piece before submitting. Submissions must not be under consideration with other publishers, and must not be already published elsewhere.

Formatting rules

• All headings must be in bold and be left-aligned. Subheadings should be italicised. Any custom formatting must be removed before submission.

• Do not indent the first sentence of a paragraph. Leave one line of space between each paragraph.

• Do not italicise any quotations. Place all quotations in single quotation marks and indent quotes over 40 words.

• Please remove any images (unless they are your own original work) from the essay before submission.

Author guidelines for Blog submissions

We welcome contributions on current developments in and reflections on humanitarian crises, mass atrocity prevention, peacebuilding, advocacy efforts and other R2P related themes. The blog is a space for youth to express their thoughts or experiences regarding these themes through commentaries, analytical pieces and creative work (poems, photography, video, short documentary etc.).

Word count: For commentary and analytical pieces, aim for 500-800 words. Longer pieces may be considered.

Referencing: Where possible, include hyperlinks. Otherwise, please use the Harvard referencing style.

Language: Submissions must be in English. If you have a good piece but do not feel confident enough with your level of English, please get in touch. Our editorial team will be happy to work with you to refine your work and provide further guidance.

Formatting rules

• All headings must be in bold and be left-aligned. Subheadings should be italicised. Any custom formatting must be removed before submission.

• Do not indent the first sentence of a paragraph. Leave one line of space between each paragraph.

• Do not italicise any quotations. Place all quotations in single quotation marks and indent large quotes.

FAQ:

Q: Who can submit?

A: Any undergraduate or postgraduate (including research) student can submit their work for the Journal. We welcome submissions from university students all over the world as long as they are in English (translated pieces are acceptable). If you have already graduated, we are happy to accept the article if it was written within 12 months of your graduation date. Please state in your submission email whether you are a current or former student and when your article was written.
For the Blog, we welcome submissions from young people, regardless of their student status.

Q: When can I submit?

A: We publish two Journal issues every year. For our Spring issue, the deadline for submissions is April 30, 2017.

We welcome blog submissions all year round. We aim to respond to you with our decision on whether your article/blog will be published or requires revision within 2 weeks of submission.

Q: How to submit?

A: If you decided to submit your work to the R2P Student Journal or the Blog, please download this Submission form, fill it in and send it with your essay to r2pstudentjournal@gmail.com. Please make sure you have made all the modifications in line with the formatting rules set out above.

Q: What about copyright?

A: We believe in open access and the free-flow of information. The R2P Student Journal is a cost-free resource and free to share or cite as long as you give appropriate credit in accordance to Creative Commons licensing.

This post, written by Natasha Kieval, Programs Intern, describes the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect in light of the recent report “The United States and R2P: From Words to Action.” 

In 2005, at the UN World Summit, governments adopted the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine. This doctrine was created out of the inability of the international community to adequately prevent and respond to heinous mass atrocities in numerous countries, including Cambodia, East Timor, Haiti, Burundi, DRC, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone. The concept of R2P rests on three pillars: the state’s responsibility to protect its population, international assistance for states to fulfill their responsibilities, and timely and decisive collective action when a state is failing to protect its citizens from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity.

In practice, R2P is rarely formally invoked, most notably during the conflict in Libya. Concerns about the invocation of R2P include the possibility that it undermines national sovereignty and the idea that R2P necessarily means military intervention.

The US continues to be “fatigued” from its involvements in Iraq and Afghanistan and is hesitant to invoke R2P (which is often assumed, albeit incorrectly, to mean military intervention) and to become involved in other conflict areas. This hesitancy seems inconsistent with President Obama’s remarks in 2012 that “preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States,” and his additional creation of the Atrocities Prevention Board.

Several prominent US officials have encouraged the US to translate the idea of R2P into a reality – most notably former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former envoy to Sudan Rich Williamson, who together co-chaired a working group and published a report entitled “The United States and R2P: From Words to Action.” This report includes several recommendations to strengthen R2P: “articulating a clear vision of U.S. support for all pillars of R2P, diplomatically engaging key like-minded states, pursuing a policy of positive engagement with the International Criminal Court (ICC), continuing to institutionalize steps to prevent atrocities, and developing additional uses for modern technologies to advance R2P objectives.” The intent of these recommendations is to allow the US to become a more credible global leader for R2P and to move the international community forward on embracing R2P.

On Tuesday, Albright and Williamson spoke about this report at the US Holocaust Museum. They spoke of the report as a way to make R2P part of an emerging norm for an international response to crimes against humanity.

Issues with R2P still exist. In the wake of these heinous crimes, there is a struggle between the issue of individual guilt (the guilt of the perpetrators) and collective guilt (the guilt of the bystanders). Some have said that R2P increases collective guilt while not addressing individual guilt enough. Albright spoke of addressing this issue on a case by case basis, and remarked that it is always awkward for her to speak about the International Criminal Court, as the US has still not become a member. Williamson also addressed the possible “moral hazard problem” that arises from R2P – the possibility that a country could begin a conflict that it is sure it cannot finish, knowing that the international community will step in. Albright referred to R2P as a double-edged sword: it allows monitoring of conflicts and greater knowledge of international crimes, but with this knowledge comes a greater need to act.

Current conflicts were brought up during this event, specifically Syria, which is on everyone’s minds. It remains unclear whether R2P will be invoked in Syria, and how (or if) this report will affect US policy. The New York Times covered this with an article on Monday.