The Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect's mission is to advance the Responsibility to Protect principle within the Asia-Pacific Region and worldwide, and support the building of capacity to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

New Report - Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities: Causes and Paths of Escalation

At the 2005 United Nations World Summit, Member States agreed that it is the responsibility of each state to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility, they recognised, ‘entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement'.   This report, the first in a new series on the prevention of these four crimes provides a framework for thinking about the causes of these crimes  - a necessary precursor to the development of effective policy.  Prevention is the single most important dimension of the Responsibility to Protect (or ‘R2P').

To date, little attention has been given to the specific causes of genocide and mass atrocities and the paths of escalation. Sound preventive strategies must be premised on a thorough understanding of the causes of genocide and mass atrocities. Almost always, the commission of genocide and mass atrocities is the result of a complex interweaving of factors over long periods of time. Therefore prevention must be equally sophisticated, choosing the right tools, engaging the most suitable actors, and combining long-term measures designed to reduce the risk of genocide and mass atrocities with measures designed to prevent their imminent commission. 

Report: preventing genocide and mass atrocities - causes and paths of escalation