Initiatives

Engaging Governments on Genocide Prevention (EGGP)

The Engaging Governments on Genocide Prevention (EGGP) program has been a confluence of institutional collaborations to create a global hub of United Nations member states’ government officials to prevent future acts of genocide. This has been done primarily through a week-long training of UN member states’ diplomatic, intelligence, military and human rights personnel. Through this training workshop, the state officials are empowered with skills, motivation, and access to resources to confront genocide at the state level. Diplomatic, intelligence, military and human rights personnel do not frequently train together, yet they often cooperate within their governments and in international organizations and alliances. EGGP creates a unique educational and interactive space by bringing together such diverse officials for intensive, candid, and participatory training sessions, in an effort to link disparate knowledge communities, ranging from academia to government agencies. It therefore prepares the conditions for a community of leading officers from participating countries to practice a new architecture of state-formation.

The primary objective of EGGP is to train officials from the 192 member states of the United Nations. The network of the trained professionals has grown to 81 people from 77 countries so far. Conceptualized and initiated by Dr. Andrea Bartoli in consultation with other international experts, the EGGP program was born as an interactive educational experience for the participating state representatives, involving lectures, seminars, small group work, simulations and individualized interaction with scholars and policy practitioners. These activities are designed to deepen the participants’ understanding of and commitment to genocide prevention, stimulated by instructions and facilitations of the week-long program by an international team of academic and practitioner experts. The pedagogical aims of the EGGP training are to impart and support the exchange of knowledge, experience and skills related to three core themes: (1) the phenomenon of genocide and the possibility of prevention; (2) lessons from previous instances of genocide and of successful prevention; and (3) the power of networks for the prevention of genocide.

International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR)

Genocide prevention has come to be embraced as one of the top priorities in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. The International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) has been concerned with genocide prevention since its inception and has taken the lead in this area through the Protocol for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity and All forms of Discrimination signed on 29th November 2006 by Heads of State and Government of the ICGLR member states. ICGLR held the Regional Interministerial Committee in May 2010, exploring ways to make genocide prevention operational in the context of the Great Lakes Region. Among the recommendations was to develop a strategy and a plan of action for the ICGLR member states to prevent and punish crime of genocide, war crime, and crime against humanity and fight against impunity and promote reconciliation.

In collaboration with the Office of Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, ICGLR organized the foundation seminar on 22-23th September 2010 in Kampala, Uganda. On that occasion, the Regional Committee for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity and All forms of Discrimination was launched. GPP participated in the seminar discussion, and focal points from each Member State were identified and the Regional Committee’s Work Plan was approved. The Regional Committee appointed by consensus Ambassador Balthazar Habonimana of Burundi as the President; Emily Chweya from Kenya as the Vice-President; and Lucien Yaliki from the Central African Republic as the Rapporteur.

The Regional Committee is the first inter-governmental body in history politically mandated by 11 member states of ICGLR to operationalize genocide prevention. Recognizing its importance, George Mason University has forged the close partnership with the Regional Committee, exchanging the Memorandum of Understanding with ICGLR to formalize the collaboration. Given the confluence of local, national, regional and international linkages of the ICGLR structure, it is now possible to imagine a dedicated, long-term, collective effort to establish a Genocide Prevention System in the territories of ICGLR. This exploration makes sense if:

  • Local ownership of the project is ensured and maintained;
  • Knowledge is made available, verified, and renewed;
  • Results are measured through meaningful processes.

The function of the Regional Committee serves as a mechanism that helps to ensure the local ownership of genocide prevention approach in each of the ICGLR member states. This is the mechanism politically arranged and legitimated by the peoples in the region themselves, and the fact that the governments have appointed their delegates to the Regional Committee signifies the states’ commitment to moving away from what was once genocide-prone region to a genocide-free region. It is ultimately the peoples in the region that can best prevent the commission of genocide and other mass violence. And it is essentially the resilience of local villages and communities that makes their states functional and anti-genocidal.

While the international landscape of genocide prevention has shifted enormously, to the point at which the Regional Committee of ICGLR was formally launched, the practical operationalization of how to implement the genocide-free zone has not been experimented in any villages or communities where violence is actually instigated and witnessed. The collaboration with the Regional Committee therefore provides an unparalleled opportunity to enter into the village or community level and experiment the integration of villages internally (local experiences of genocidal risks and violence are properly detected and responded) and externally (local experiences are properly known to external stakeholders). Through the Regional Committee mechanism, therefore, comes the possibility to integrate genocide prevention at all the four levels - international, regional, national, and local levels.

The Governance Commons

In collaboration with Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess, Co-Directors of Conflict Information Consortium at the University of Colorado, GPP is developing the knowledge database of genocide prevention on the portal of the Governance Commons.