By Youk Chhang
Global strategies to prevent and halt atrocity crimes naturally require a degree of bureaucracy, but bureaucracy should never be an end in itself. The United Nations (U.N.) must do better in exercising strategic leadership in global prevention and response efforts.
I fully support the views of the authors of the recent Just Security article, If the UN and Member States Are Serious About Preventing Atrocities, It’s Time to Reboot a Key Office, that the U.N. system must elevate atrocity crimes prevention as a priority. I also agree that past approaches to atrocity crimes prevention and response have fallen far short of the U.N.’s mandates and expectations.
Persistent, complex global problems like atrocity crimes require global strategies that are dynamic, multi-faceted, integrated, and enduring. Above all, they require strategic leadership. This is essential because it unites and brings direction to complex and uncertain environments, especially when competing agendas exist.
The authors’ recommendations, which include consolidating the special adviser on the prevention of genocide and the special adviser on the responsibility to protect into a single special adviser, offer a promising starting point. The two advisers currently have distinct mandates but operate within the Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, known as the “Joint Office.” Combining both advisers in a single adviser role with a consolidated mandate and enhanced authority appears to be a logical solution to ensure consistency in strategy, unity of effort, and most importantly, a revitalization of a mission that has faltered. But this consolidation should not overlook or dismiss the actions and strategies that were effective under previous special advisers.
Leveraging grassroots partnerships for global impact
Former Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Alice Wairimu Nderitu specifically endeavored to strengthen regional prevention architectures at the grassroots-level by working with and through civil society organizations as well as a quasi-coalition of intergovernmental, governmental, and private-sector stakeholders. Her work and strategy bore significant, credible results not only in forging new international partnerships but also in producing new initiatives with tremendous potential for growth, which can feed into the U.N.’s global mandate.
The U.N. should continue her work by further investing in grassroots-level regional cooperation. Not only does this offer immense potential for horizontal and vertical scaling, but atrocity crimes prevention and response will always require grassroots action. No global strategy can succeed without grounding it in local communities to ensure impact, equity, and long-term sustainability.
The grassroots organization that I helped establish in 1995 under an act of the U.S. Congress the previous year, the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) documents the crimes and atrocities of the Khmer Rouge era. Toward that goal, it integrates local, community, and national stakeholders throughout every phase of its projects. Through these partnerships and in close collaboration with the Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, DC-Cam has successfully integrated atrocity crimes prevention education into all public schools in Cambodia.
Moreover, in collaboration with the Cambodian Ministry of Defense, DC-Cam is developing a robust military history program that incorporates atrocity crimes prevention education for military officers and civil servants. Additionally, DC-Cam’s work with the U.N. Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide has resulted in a robust Southeast Asian education program on atrocity crimes prevention. This program, incorporating the U.N. Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes: A Tool for Prevention, was piloted with teachers and government education officials from Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
These are just a few of the successful initiatives where grassroots action and partnerships with local communities and governmental and intergovernmental stakeholders made important strides toward advancing atrocity crimes prevention in Cambodia.
Where the UN cannot reach, local organizations must lead
The potential to scale up education on atrocity crimes prevention across communities, nations, and entire regions is not a distant ideal; it is a concrete, actionable strategy for global atrocity crimes prevention. Through the strategic leadership of a truly empowered U.N. special adviser, grassroots partnerships can drive momentum where progress has otherwise been elusive within the U.N. system.
It is more critical than ever that the U.N. exercises strategic leadership in this area. We stand at a precipice of great risk. If the U.N. does not rapidly seize the initiative and exercise strategic leadership in atrocity crimes prevention -- among many other areas sorely in need of unity and action -- the horrors that led to the ratification of the Genocide Convention, the Geneva Conventions, and other global instruments of international peace and security will inevitably resurface with unprecedented ferocity in the 21st century.
Future generations will either look back on the U.N. as a critical institution that helped “save humanity from hell,” or as another institution among others in history that tried and failed to unify the world in the face of impending calamity.
Youk Chhang is the executive director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), established in 1995 as an independent, non-governmental Cambodian civil society organization dedicated to justice and memory. Chhang is a recognized leader in genocide education, prevention, and research. In 2018, Chhang received the Ramon Magsaysay Award, known as “Asia’s Nobel Prize,” for his work in preserving the memory of genocide and seeking justice in the Cambodian nation and the world.
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