News
As a service to the atrocity prevention community, GAAMAC posts news directly relevant to atrocity prevention. The opinions expressed in the news articles do not represent the views of GAAMAC, its Steering Group or any partner organization.
The world reacts to chemical attack in Syria as civilians continue to suffer
14 Apr 2017
On 4 April, a chemical gas attack in Khan Shaykhun, a town in Syria’s Idlib Governorate, killed more than 80 civilians. Shortly thereafter, images of victims showing symptoms associated with exposure to nerve gas, namely suffocation, foaming at the mouth, convulsions, constricted pupils, and...
How can ‘dealing with the past’ contribute to preventing the recurrence of atrocities: What can and should we do?
4 Apr 2017
Our new GAAMAC partner, the Liberation War Museum in Bangladesh, has organized its 5th International Conference on ‘Bangladesh Genocide and Justice’ on 19-21 May 2017.
GAAMAC was part of that meeting, participating in a roundtable on 21 May entitled “How can dealing with...
Archives against Genocide Denialism? Challenges to the Use of Archives in Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation
28 Mar 2017
Considering the value of archives for dealing with the past processes, especially for the establishment of collective memory and identity, this paper, "Archives against Genocide Denialism?",...
In South Sudan’s Relentless War Zone, Radio Can Save Lives
24 Mar 2017
Public radio in a camp for people who have fled violence in South Sudan’s war offers news as basic as food-distribution schedules but also fictional dramas. Here, a radio station in Juba, the capital, countering hate speech based on ethnicity.
Jess Engrebretson, a humanitarian aid...
Questions about Jurisdiction
22 Mar 2017
Who should try cases of genocide, mass atrocities and war crimes committed in Iraq by the Islamic State (also known as ISIS and Daesh)? It is a complicated question that doesn't have a simple answer.
When it comes to prosecuting Islamic State fighters and terrorists for crimes and...
Peace Operations and Prevention for Sustaining Peace: The Restoration and Extension of State Authority
19 Mar 2017
As member states continue to discuss what sustaining peace means in practice, it is important to examine how peace operations can be designed and implemented to help build self-sustaining peace rather than just prevent relapse into conflict. In particular, as most current peace operations are...
Bangsamoro/Philippines: TJRC Reports Public Launch 2017
19 Mar 2017
The Normalization Annex of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB), signed on 25 January 2014, provides for the creation of the Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC), an independent body mandated by the Peace Panels of the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the...
African Working Group
17 Mar 2017
The African Working Group (AWG), established at GAAMAC II, held its inaugural workshop on 17 – 18 January 2017 in Kampala, Uganda. The AWG's main objective is the drafting of a "Manual on Best Practices in Strengthening National Mechanisms for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities."...
We Need More Multilateralism, Not Less: The Case for Prevention
16 Mar 2017
By United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs
The Secretary-General has made his agenda clear: to make sure that prevention, enduring peace and human rights prevail, we need to address the root causes of conflict. And to do that, we need to reform the...
Relative Risks of State-Led Mass Killing Onset in 2017: Results from a Wiki Survey
9 Mar 2017
By Early Warning Project
For the fourth year in a row, the Early Warning Project ran a wiki survey in December to poll opinions on countries' relative risks of state-led mass killing onsets. The results are mapped. The darker the shade of gray, the greater the risk that a...
The Global Centre’s Statement on Revised “Muslim Ban"
6 Mar 2017
By Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Today US President Donald J. Trump issued a revised executive order restricting entry to the United States for people from six predominately Muslim countries. The new executive order also suspends the US Refugee Admissions...
ICG Watch List 2017
25 Feb 2017
International Crisis Group has released their Watch List 2017. It includes the Lake Chad basin, Libya, Myanmar, Nagorno-Karabakh, Sahel, Somalia, Syria, Turkey, Venezuela and Yemen. This annual early-warning report identifies conflict situations in which prompt action by the European Union and...
Assessing the Prospects for Transitional Justice in Georgia
24 Feb 2017
Towards the end of 2015, the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) was invited to Georgia to consider whether current conditions were conducive to a serious exploration of the past and the implementation of substantive transitional justice steps to reckon with its past conflicts...
For Political Reconciliation in Pakistan, "Stoking the Fire in Karachi"
22 Feb 2017
Decades of neglect and mismanagement have turned Karachi, Pakistan’s largest and wealthiest city, into a pressure cooker. Ethno-political and sectarian interests and competition, intensified by internal migration, jihadist influx and unchecked movement of weapons, drugs and black money, have...
African Directions: Towards an Equitable Partnership in Peace Operations
15 Feb 2017
Africa has increasingly become the focus of peace operations and, by extension, the main arena for new developments and approaches in them. The New Geopolitics of Peace Operations II initiative aims to stimulate dialogue on international cooperation in peace operations in Africa. Largely based...
The Power of the Private Sector in Preventing Atrocities and Promoting the Responsibility to Protect
15 Feb 2017
Past events have demonstrated that business can play a positive role in preventing atrocities. During the Kenyan elections of 2012–2013 and the 2011 Arab Spring uprising in Tunisia, businesses demonstrated they can help diffuse potentially tragic situations.
The private sector often...
WANEP Appeals for Sustained Dialogue and Not Violence in Bimbilla
14 Feb 2017
The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, Ghana (WANEPGhana) and its member organizations notes with great concern the recent conflict in Bimbilla between the Nakpaa and Andani families which has resulted in the death of a child and nine other persons mostly women. Several people have also...
On the situation in South Sudan, Feb 2017
8 Feb 2017
[New York, 6 February 2017] The Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, expressed grave concern at the continued level of violence in several areas of South Sudan. “President Salva Kiir has made a commitment to end the violence and bring about...
Report on mass hangings and extermination in a Syrian prison by Amnesty International
8 Feb 2017
A chilling new report by Amnesty International exposes the Syrian government’s calculated campaign of extrajudicial executions by mass hangings at Saydnaya Prison. Between 2011 and 2015, every week and often twice a week, groups of up to 50 people were taken out of their prison cells and...
On the situation in northern Rakhine State, Myanmar, Feb 2017
7 Feb 2017
(New York, 6 February 2017) The United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, stated that he was shocked and alarmed to read the accounts of serious human rights violations being committed against Muslim Rohingya in northern Rakhine State by Myanmar’s security...