Policy Salon

Washington, DC

Conflict prevention has benefited from concerted focus among policymakers, academics, and civil society. Much less analysis, however, has been applied to preventing the perpetration of mass atrocity crimes, specifically genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes. Major policy frameworks—ranging from the ICISS Commission and the UN secretary-general’s 2009 report on the responsibility to protect (R2P) to the Genocide Prevention Task Force blueprint, US National Security Strategy, and the 2010 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review—emphasize prevention as core to international efforts to address mass atrocity crimes and implement the responsibility to protect.

While these frameworks reinforce the strategic priority placed on prevention, systematic research on how mass atrocities should or can be prevented remains scant.

With the support of the Australian Responsibility to Protect Fund, the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC) has sought to help address this lingering gap through a research project entitled “The Responsibility to Prevent: Developing Targeted and Systemic Strategies.”

Dinner discussion will feature the leaders of ELAC’s project, Professor Jennifer Welsh and Dr. Serena Sharma, as they present the strategic framework for prevention developing from the findings of their research. Their presentation will be followed by an off-the-record exchange among participants.