We believe that R2P can make a signifi cant diff erence in preventing the kinds of mass atroci-ties that have scarred our collective past, but progress depends on our ability and will to over-come an array of political, institutional, and operational obstacles. Th e United States is the country best able to provide leadership, but R2P is an international standard, and every country has a duty—inside and outside its borders—to contribute.
Correctly understood, R2P does not assume center stage only in times of emergency. It re-fl ects a continuous obligation on all states to protect their own people from mass atrocities and assist others when necessary. Th at obligation can most readily be met through the appropriate use of a full range of policy tools. Measures that strengthen democracy, broaden prosperity, promote accountability, and heal social and political divisions will all play a part. Th is means that, for most countries most of the time, R2P will be achieved through the normal function-ing of government. However, in some cases, governments will not be willfunction-ing or able to safe-guard their citizens. When that happens, or is threatened, the world must respond. Th is places a burden on national leaders, acting on their own and through multilateral organizations, to prepare. Our recommendations are focused on this imperative.
We are encouraged that, in just a few years, R2P has assumed a prominent role in interna-tional deliberations. We remain concerned, however, that it has been accepted more as a new framework for discussion than as a guide for action. We fully recognize the many demands placed on top U.S. offi cials in this turbulent era, but we are also convinced that eff ectively real-izing R2P’s purpose will serve the best interests of our country now and for generations to come.
Accordingly, we urge a comprehensive policy that includes, fi rst, a plan for strengthening the U.S. capacity to fulfi ll R2P; second, steps for engaging other nations and institutions in improv-ing global preparedness; and third, ideas for increasimprov-ing public awareness of, and support for, the prevention of mass atrocities.
Just as R2P refl ects an enduring commitment, so its implementation will require diligent prep-aration, organization, and leadership over time. Th at process should emphasize early warning and prevention as the norm’s key components, while highlighting the value of a dynamic U.S. role, the need for vigorous multilateral action in times of crisis, the importance of innovation, and the goal of nurturing and sustaining an international political consensus in support of R2P.
We recommend the following:
To enlarge the U.S. capacity to help implement the responsibility to protect:
•
The president and other senior U.S. officials should regularly articulate a clear vision of U.S. atrocity prevention policy and cast a spotlight on the U.S. commitment to R2P in major speeches, including the annual State of the Union address, remarks before the United Nations, and testimony on Capitol Hill. The APB should also make publicly available an unclassified version of its annual report to the president outlining its achievements and priorities in atrocity prevention from the previous year and looking forward.•
U.S. policy should be to endorse and support all three pillars of R2P, recognizing that the doctrine provides an essential but not necessarily exclusive mechanism for preventing genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.U.S. leaders should be clear that our government retains the responsibility, within or beyond the framework of R2P, to assist populations that are threatened by mass atrocities, especially when one or more well-established regional or subregional organizations support such an endeavor.
•
The U.S. government should consider any credible early warning of potential genocide or war crimes anywhere in the world to require an immediate high-level policy review to identify alternatives and take steps to reduce the likelihood of catastrophe.•
The National Security Council’s director for war crimes and members of the APB should be fully represented in the national security decision-making process.•
The State Department’s annual report on human rights practices should include an assessment as to whether governments are living up to their obligations under R2P, and if not, why not.•
The director of national intelligence’s annual threat assessment should include an unclassified discussion of any countries or populations that are at imminent risk from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity.•
The executive branch should improve government-wide training programs so that foreign affairs officers in all relevant U.S. agencies understand their roles within the larger atrocity prevention framework. These efforts should focus particularly on build-ing expertise among personnel assigned to embassies in countries where the host government’s ability or willingness to adhere to R2P is deemed to be at risk.•
The president should instruct federal agencies not now fully involved in preventing international humanitarian crimes to do more by, first, designing foreign assistance programs that emphasize support for democratic institutions and otherwise aid in the long-term protection of human rights; second, encouraging the Department of the Treasury to identify and implement sanctions against those who enable or perpetrate mass atrocities; and third, strengthening Justice Department support for initiatives aimed at ensuring accountability to the rule of law.28
Working Group on the Responsibility to Protect
To enhance international action in support of R2P:
•
The U.S. government should launch a diplomatic initiative with the UN secretariat and like-minded nations to strengthen the global capacity to prevent the atrocities covered under the rubric of R2P.•
The United States and its allies should strengthen and evaluate options for the appropriate use of nonmilitary coercive tools (such as communications jamming) that could undermine the capacity of governments, organizations, and individuals to carry out abuses covered by R2P.•
The U.S. government should continue and—where possible and consistent with U.S.interests—expand its policy of positive engagement with the ICC
•
Congress should approve full funding for international crisis prevention and stabili-zation measures, including development assistance, prodemocracy programs, UN peacekeeping, other relevant UN activities, and support for training and equipping the emergency response forces of regional organizations.•
In coordination with NATO, the U.S. government should devise a plan for enhanc-ing the capacity of regional organizations to provide emergency crisis settlement, peacekeeping, and civilian protection services to populations that are at risk of mass atrocities. Congress and the legislatures of NATO countries are encouraged to pro-vide financing for this initiative, recognizing that the costs of prevention will far outweigh the potential price of allied intervention.•
The United States should propose that, as an example to others, each member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe design a robust and well-publicized plan for contributing, in appropriate ways, to the prevention, halting, and prosecution of abuses covered by R2P.•
The White House and State Department should consult regularly with Brazil and other countries that have expressed an interest in ensuring the proper implementation of the R2P concept.To increase public awareness of and support for R2P:
•
The Senate foreign relations and House foreign affairs committees should conduct regu-lar oversight hearings on U.S. and international efforts to fulfill the promise of R2P.•
The U.S. government should launch a comprehensive study of the extent to which modern communication technologies and surveillance drones may appropriately be used to support the purposes of R2P, including the prevention of, and more rapid response to, mass atrocities. The study should use expertise from our national intelligence commu-nity and the departments of State and Defense and should proceed in partnership with experts from the private sector. The goal should be to develop a technology-based genocide prevention initiative based on practical ideas for enhanced deterrence, early warning, civilian protection, accountability, and other aspects of R2P implementation.•
U.S. officials and the representatives of international NGOs should hold periodic meetings to assess dangers, share information, and explore options related to the ongoing and future implementation of R2P, especially in countries with the greatest potential hazard.•
The U.S. government should exchange information regularly with those segments of civil society that are in a position to provide early warning of situations that may fall within the scope of R2P.•
Interested actors in the global NGO community should share information and pool resources to produce a comprehensive annual report on implementation of R2P. The report should focus on international and national efforts to support each pillar of the doctrine and call attention to countries where populations are at risk of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity. Ideally, the NGO report will be a valuable supplementary resource for decision makers, a means for dramatizing the importance of R2P, and a provocative starting point for legislative and parliamen-tary hearings on the subject.Working Group Members
COCHAIRS
Madeleine K. Albright, chair, Albright Stonebridge Group
Richard S. Williamson, nonresident senior fellow, Brookings Institution
PARTICIPANTS
David Abramowitz, vice president of policy and government relations, Humanity United Michael Abramowitz, director, Center for the Prevention of Genocide, United States Holo-caust Memorial Museum
Simon Adams, executive director, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect Lloyd Axworthy, president and vice chancellor, University of Winnipeg
Anna Burger, advanced leadership initiative fellow, Harvard University Louis Caldera, president, Caldera Associates, LLC
Ron Capps, writer and analyst
Wesley K. Clark, chairman and chief executive offi cer, Wesley K. Clark & Associates Gregory Craig, partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP
Paula J. Dobriansky, senior fellow, Harvard University, JFK Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Eric Edelman, distinguished fellow, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments Gareth Evans, president emeritus, International Crisis Group, and chancellor, Australian National University
Michelle Farley, former program offi cer, Wellspring Advisors Elizabeth Ferris, senior fellow, Brookings Institution
Jerry Fowler, senior policy analyst, Open Society Foundations Sherri Goodman, senior vice president and general counsel, CNA Heather Hurlburt, executive director, National Security Network
Bruce Jentleson, professor of public policy and political science, Duke University Jim Kolbe, senior transatlantic fellow, German Marshall Fund
Juan Méndez, visiting professor of law, American University, Washington College of Law Martha Minow, dean and Jeremiah Smith, Jr. professor of law, Harvard Law School George Moose, vice chairman of the board of directors, United States Institute of Peace James O’Brien, principal, Albright Stonebridge Group
Amir Osman, Africa regional manager, Open Society Foundations
Nicholas Rostow, senior director, Center for Strategic Research, National Defense University Anne-Marie Slaughter, Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 university professor of politics and interna-tional affairs, Princeton University
Nancy Soderberg, president, Connect U.S. Fund
Margot Wallström, former special representative of the secretary-general on sexual violence in confl ict, United Nations
Vin Weber, partner, Mecury/Clark & Weinstock
Abiodun Williams, president, The Hague Institute for Global Justice
Lawrence Woocher, formerly with Science Applications International Corporation Anne C. Richard was a member of the group until she resigned in March 2012 from the International Rescue Committee to become assistant secretary for population, refugees, and
Group, a global strategy firm, and chair of Albright Capital Management LLC, an investment advisory firm focused on emerging markets. Dr. Albright was the sixty-fourth secretary of state of the United States. In 1997, she was named the first female secretary of state and became, at that time, the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. From 1993 to 1997, Dr. Albright served as the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations and was a member of the president’s cabinet. She is a professor in the practice of diplomacy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Dr. Albright chairs both the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and the Pew Global Attitudes Project. She is also the president of the Truman Scholarship Foundation and a member of an advisory body, the U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Policy Board . She served as cochair of the Genocide Prevention Task Force, which, in 2008, outlined thirty-four practical policy recommendations to enhance the capacity of the U.S.
government to respond to emerging threats of genocide and mass atrocities. In 2012, she was chosen by President Obama to receive the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in recognition of her contributions to international peace and democracy.
Richard S. Williamson is a nonresident senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, a principal in the consulting firm Salisbury Strategies LLP, and a Buffet Scholar and adjunct professor at Northwestern University. His work focuses on human rights, multilateral diplomacy, nuclear nonproliferation, and postconflict reconstruction.
Prior to those positions, Mr. Williamson served as presidential special envoy to Sudan under President George W. Bush. Earlier in the Bush administration, Mr. Williamson, who has broad foreign policy and negotiating experience, served as ambassador to the United Nations for special political affairs and as ambassador to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Previously Mr. Williamson served in several other senior foreign policy positions under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, including as assistant secretary of state for
interna-tional organizations at the Department of State and as an assistant to