Genocide Watch

A Washington-based non-governmental organization (NGO) established for the purpose of predicting, preventing, and stopping genocide and other similar punishable acts that entail individual criminal liability under international criminal law, and ensuring the prosecution and punishment of their perpetrators, Genocide Watch primarily aims to construct a global movement addressing the issue of genocide in its entirety. The underlying motive behind its creation is the observation that the perpetrators of the most heinous crimes have for the most part gone unpunished, while those crimes have systematically and frequently been committed. Drawing attention to some 50 genocides and similar atrocities since 1945, and more than 70 million people that have died as a result of the commission of those crimes, the founders of the organization contend that there are two outstanding reasons for the aforesaid appalling situation. First, the lack of an effective international mechanism that would address the issue of genocide in general, and of an early warning system that would predict the occurrences of the relevant crimes in particular, increases the possibility of their commission. Second, in the absence of an international mechanism and early warning system, addressing the issue is left to the national authorities. However, because those crimes have mostly been committed by the governments against their own subjects, the prosecution and punishment of the crimes involved have been possible only if those governments have been overthrown and found liable by the succeeding ones.

Therefore, Genocide Watch has so far taken action in order to fill the void described above. The activities that could be cited in this regard include various proposals made by Gregory Stanton, president of the organization, to establish an early warning system to be run in cooperation between civil society actors and the United Nations, raising public awareness in connection with the issue of genocide, and most importantly, coordinating an international coalition called the International Campaign to End Genocide (ICEG).

The ICEG was agreed to in 1999 at The Hague and has been led by Genocide Watch since then. In general terms, it aims to draw the interest and attention of the international community to the crime of genocide, to create institutions that would be competent to prevent and stop genocide, and to punish its perpetrators. The accomplishments of the previously organized similar campaigns, most notably the global campaign to ban land mines, and the coalition formed to establish a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) inspired the creators of the ICEG. However, to date, its influence and success have been very modest in comparison to its predecessors. While the prior efforts have involved thousands of organizations, only 30 NGOs have participated in the campaign led by Genocide Watch.

Several reasons could be referred to for this failure. First of all, there is no guarantee that coalition building will always create the desired outcome. Second, unlike the campaigns to ban land mines and establish the ICC, the ICEG has a central organization, a fact that could have caused disinterest in the campaign by NGOs. Third, the previous campaigns have engaged in solid and clear issues, with boundaries and contexts that were certain; however, the genocide issue is not an acute one that could be resolved in a specified time period. Therefore, given that coalition building is an issue-oriented endeavor whose survival and efficiency very much depends on the issue itself, the ambiguities and uncertainties [Page 615]involved in the ICEG could be seen as one of the reasons for the low level of participation.

...