The Jacob Blaustein Institute’s Genocide
Prevention Project is working to clarify the extent of state obligations in
terms of genocide prevention. At the request of the Special Advisor on the
Prevention of Genocide, JBI has under taken an extensive legal review,
including consultations with a team of legal specialists and human rights
experts, of the many indicators of genocide in order to identify the
corresponding legal norms that can be invoked to remind governments of their
obligations.
The "risk factors" consist of a compilation of human rights abuses which have
been recorded in the lead up to past genocides and their corresponding legal
norms. The precursors can include a history of mass atrocities in a particular
country; targeted violence against members of a particular group; the
state-condoned use of dehumanizing, discriminatory hate speech against members
of a particular group; employment and education practices that discriminate
against specific groups; denial of citizenship to members of targeted groups;
among other such practices. This list is not exhaustive, and pre-genocidal
situations will have significant contextual differences that will require
case-by-case analysis. The international community acknowledged the importance
of establishing early warning mechanisms to effectively prevent the onset of
genocide, most recently in the World Summit Outcome Document of 2005.
States must be reminded that they have obligations to prevent genocide based on
internationally accepted norms with which they are expected to comply. They
must be provided with the information necessary to make them aware of the
precursors to genocide and of the preventive steps they must take to halt
potential genocidal acts. The importance and relevance of a normative framework
for the prevention of genocide will better equip the Special Advisor to respond
to situations that may appear pre-genocidal.
The "risk factors" listed in the Compilation are derived from international
legal norms found in the major international and regional human rights treaties
and jurisprudence. The risk factors do not refer to random acts but to severe
and systematic abuses of human rights. Many of the rights associated with the
risk factors are non-derogable as set forth in Article 4 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Though all of the risk factors in the
compilation constitute violations of human rights and humanitarian law, each
one in and of itself is a “necessary but not sufficient causal factor” of
genocide. However, when one and/or more risk factors appears in combination
with others and in certain circumstances including deteriorating political,
economic and legal conditions in a society, they may well contribute to the
onset of genocide. The presence of one or more risk factors therefore does not
necessarily mean that genocide will take place, but it should serve as an early
warning to a state that it should take measures to mitigate the risk.
The Compilation of Norms is in its near-final stages of review. It will serve
to clearly set out the legal basis for genocide prevention within already
existing norms of international law, and facilitate with identifying specific
situations of possible concern.