Mass atrocities planned and orchestrated by individuals continue to cause death, pain and destruction for millions of people in Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR) and elsewhere. Large-scale, systematic and indiscriminate violence against ethnic or religious groups have led tens of millions of people mostly from the Middle East to seek refuge in Europe. The resulting political shock of the so-called “refugee crisis” will still shape this year’s elections in several EU member states. As an international community and as individual states, we have yet to learn how to prevent or stop atrocities with any regularity. Despite individual cases of relative success (some of which we analyze in this study) and larger political and legal advances, such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Human Rights Up Front initiative of the United Nations (UN), and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), leaders and governments are failing all too often to live up to their commitment to assist individual states to meet their obligation to protect their own population from atrocities, and if a state manifestly fails to do so, to implement the international community’s subsidiary responsibility to protect threatened populations.
This study identifies lessons for the Trump administration as well as other governments and non-state actors who share the goal of preventing and stopping mass atrocities. The study draws on data obtained from government, NGO, and scholarly sources, as well as interviews conducted with current and former US government officials and country experts from civil society organizations. Nine case studies (including Myanmar, Burundi, the CAR, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Iraq, Kenya, Libya, Syria, and South Sudan) illustrate the various tools that the Obama administration has used to prevent and respond to atrocities from 2009 to the present.
