The General Assembly held a plenary meeting on the “Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the prevention of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity” on 26 and 30 June as part of the formal agenda of its 77th session. As states gathered in the General Assembly to discuss challenges and best practices for the implementation of R2P, this year’s debate took place amidst the backdrop of alarming global levels of violence, persecution and conflict, including the outbreak of new conflicts in countries like Sudan with a recent history of atrocities

The 53^rd regular session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) was held in Geneva between 19 June and 14 July 2023. As the primary international human rights body, the HRC has the capacity to prevent and respond to mass atrocity crimes, as systematic violations and abuses of human rights can be an indicator of potential genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or ethnic cleansing. 
                                                     

Atrocity alert No. 356: Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Syria,
Publication of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. Click here.

PUBLICATION - Drawing on the crisis in Cameroon as an example, this article discusses how practitioners—especially policy makers and non-governmental advocates—can use the Simon-Skjodt Center’s Tools for Atrocity Prevention resource to inform and strengthen policy responses to specific cases. Click here.

VIDEO 

PUBLICATION - Shirin Anlen and Raquel Vazquez Llorente highlight the potential of using AI tools to support human rights advocacy and social critique, without neglecting appropriate caution and ethical considerations. Click here. 

PODCAST - Engaging with the powerful
Click here to access this episode from the Centre of Humanitarian Dialogue with Haile Menkerios.

PUBLICATION - Kristina Hook and Ernesto Verdeja examine how social media misinformation (SMM) can worsen political instability and legitimize mass atrocities. They propose several recommendations for the instability and atrocity prevention community. Click here.

Atrocity alert No. 354: Children and Armed Conflict, and Mali
Publication of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. Click here.

Atrocity Alert No. 353: Syria, India and Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory
Publication of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. Click here.

PODCAST - practical skills
The art of creating safe spaces for difficult conversations. 
Click here to access this episode from the Oslo Forum with Annette Weber

ZOOMING on ten conflicts shaking the world this year. 

PUBLICATION - The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is deeply concerned about the dire risk of genocide in Darfur, Sudan. Check here.
More information about the recent developments in Sudan here and here.

PUBLICATION - In this article, Marco Respinti sheds light on the mass atrocities which took in Bangladesh at the beginning of the 1970s, which remain to this day, unacknowledged. Click here. 

Since 2016, the EU Day Against Impunity (EUDAI) is celebrated on the 23rd of May under the auspices of the Presidency of the Council of the EU in cooperation with the European Commission, the Genocide Network and the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust).

This event aims at raising awareness of impunity related to core international crimes, which encompass the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Furthermore, it is intended to promote national investigations and prosecutions, to formally recognise the common efforts of the EU Member States and the European Union in enforcing international criminal law, to address the position and participation of victims in criminal proceedings for these crimes, and to reinvigorate Europe-wide commitment to the continuing fight against impunity for these crimes.

Watch this year's EU Day Against Impunity by clicking below. 

This year, the EUDAI is part of the MLA Diplomatic Conference for the Adoption of the Convention on International Cooperation in the Investigation and Prosecution of Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes and other International Crimes. The aim of the Diplomatic Conference is to conduct formal negotiations that will result in the adoption of a new procedural multilateral treaty on mutual legal assistance and extradition in order to facilitate better practical cooperation between States investigating and prosecuting core international crimes.The draft Convention also foresees that State parties should establish extraterritorial jurisdiction over these types of crimes when the alleged offender is present on the State party’s territory. 

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