Abstract
This article addresses the role that citizen-driven political will plays, or fails to play, in influencing the US government to take steps to prevent genocide abroad. The author focuses on the Genocide Intervention Network as an example of how citizens have been able to translate their human rights concerns into a politically effective campaign against the ongoing genocide in Darfur, finding ways to motivate and shame their political representatives into action.
The term “prevention ” is used throughout this article to mean both the prevention of genocide and other mass atrocity crimes before they begin, and the halting of further killing once violence is already underway.
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Notes
- 1.
Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, Basic Books (2002).
- 2.
Dallaire , quoted in Phillip Gourevitch , We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998).
- 3.
Accounts of the situation in Darfur are provided in Gérard Prunier, Chapter 3, Sections 3.1 and 3.2 (above), Catherine Lu, Chapter 18, Sections 18.1 and 18.2 (below) and Luis Moreno-Ocampo , Chapter 16 (below).
- 4.
The need to take into account national interests in genocide prevention is addressed in Yehuda Bauer, Chapter 7, Sections 7.1 and 7.3 (above).
- 5.
As recently as 2002, genocide prevention was not addressed in the US National Security Strategy (NSS). The 2002 NSS made a passing reference to genocide, saying that it was a goal of the US Government to use its influence to make clear that terrorism is illegitimate and should be viewed in the same light as genocide. See National Security Council , The National Security Strategy of the United States of America 2002, Washington D.C., September 2002, Part III. Not until 2006 did genocide prevention merit its own section of the NSS. See National Security Council, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America 2002, Washington D.C., September 2006, Part IV(C)(4).
- 6.
The recently completed report of the Taskforce on Genocide Prevention, co-chaired by Madeleine Albright and William Cohen, offers a promising pathway through which the traditional thinking about the role of genocide prevention in the foreign policy context can and should be updated. However it is too early to tell whether the report’s recommendations will be meaningfully implemented. See Taskforce on Genocide Prevention, Preventing Genocide: Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers, (2008). Available at: http://www.usip.org/genocide_taskforce/report.html.
- 7.
Of course there is no good reason why the status quo in this regard should not be subject to challenge, but that is not the topic of this article.
- 8.
Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, “American Public Opinion and Foreign Policy,” p. 23, 2002.
- 9.
Zogby International poll, May 2005, available at: http://www.africaaction.org/resources/docs/DarfurPolls05.pdf.
- 10.
David Rieff, “The Precarious Triumph of Human Rights,” New York Times Magazine, August 8, 1999.
- 11.
Warren Hoge, “Intervention Hailed as a Concept is Shunned in Practice,” New York Times , January 20, 2008. See also, Paul Ritcher, “Rwanda Violence Stumps World Leaders” Los Angeles Times April 30, 1994, p. A13 (Representative Schroeder of New York explaining that she received more calls from her constituents about the threat to Rwandan gorillas during the 1994 genocide than about the destruction of people).
- 12.
See generally, Hamilton & Hazlett, “Not on Our Watch” in War in Darfur and the Search for Peace, (Alex deWaal, ed.) (Harvard University Press: 2007).
- 13.
Interview with Mark Hanis , 29 March 2008.
- 14.
Interview with Allyson Neville, 24 April 2008.
- 15.
Interview with Allyson Neville, 1 February 2009.
- 16.
See supra at note 6.
- 17.
Of all the unlikely role models, GI-Net looked to the National Rifle Association, who had been using a scorecard system to successfully protect the rights of US gun owners for years. See, http://www.nra.org. If you can hold politicians accountable for protecting the rights of rifle owners, you should be able to hold them accountable for protecting civilians from genocide.
- 18.
See http://www.DarfurScores.org [Note: from February 2009, this website will be transitioned to http://www.GenocideScores.org]
- 19.
“DarfurScores .org Donor report,” Genocide Intervention Network (on file with author).
- 20.
Interview with Allyson Neville, February 1, 2009.
- 21.
The impact of divestment on the South African government and an argument for the use of economic sanctions to effect changes in the Darfur situation are examined in Richard J. Goldstone, Chapter 11, Sections 11.2 and 11.4 (above).
- 22.
See “Statement by Harvard Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (CCSR) Regarding Stock in PetroChina Company Limited” Harvard Gazette, April 4, 2005.
- 23.
- 24.
The Sudan Divestment Task Force’s targeted divestment policy affects only companies that meet very stringent criteria: companies that (1) have a business relationship with the government of Sudan , (2) impart minimal benefit to the country’s underprivileged, and (3) have demonstrated no substantial corporate governance policy regarding the Darfur situation. See http://www.sudandivestment.org.
- 25.
Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act: S.2271 (passed December 13, 2007).
- 26.
See http://www.sudandivestment.org/statistics.asp The countries are: Australia , Belgium , Brazil, Canada, Denmark , Germany , India , Ireland , Italy, Japan, the Netherlands , New Zealand, Norway, South Africa , Sweden , Switzerland , and the United Kingdom .
- 27.
In the US House of Representatives, 8 Congressional resolutions were passed in the period June 2006 – December 2007. Darfur Peace and Accountability Act: H.R. 3127 (passed June 26, 2006); NATO Bridging Force: H.R. 723 (passed September 26, 2006); House Amendment 709 to H.R. 4939 (passed June 16, 2006); Presidential Special Envoy: House Resolution 992 (passed September 26, 2006); China Resolution: House Resolution 422 (passed June 5, 2007); Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act: H.R.180 (passed July 31, 2007); Genocide Accountability Act: H.R.2489 (passed December 5, 2007); Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act: S.2271 (passed December 13, 2007). See also, Hamilton & Hazlett, “Not on Our Watch” in War in Darfur and the Search for Peace, (Alex de Waal, ed.) (Harvard University Press: 2007).
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Hamilton, R.J. (2011). Creating the Outcry: Citizen-Driven Political Will for Genocide Prevention in the US Context. In: Provost, R., Akhavan, P. (eds) Confronting Genocide. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9840-5_15
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