Serious Steps to Stop Atrocities
The establishment of the Atrocities Prevention Board (APB)—a new interagency body unveiled yesterday by President Obama—represents a major advance in the U.S. commitment to counter genocide and mass atrocities. If the APB functions as intended, it will make a real difference to the effectiveness of the U.S. government in meeting the challenge of these horrific crimes.
To those familiar with the many failures to act quickly to the threat of mass atrocities in the past, this is a big “if.” Generating the political will to react to warning of mass atrocities has proven to be immensely difficult, and often the response has been too little, too late. Previous efforts to redress the institutional weakness of the U.S. government to prevent mass atrocities have also not fared well. An initiative in the late 1990s to improve early warning and institutional response to mass atrocities did not outlive the Clinton administration.
The creators of the APB appear to have learned the lessons of these earlier efforts in several ways. First, and most importantly, they have emphasized from the beginning that this effort has the clear backing of the president, who has categorically declared the prevention of mass atrocities and genocide to be “a core national security interest and core moral responsibility of the United States.” This sends a strong signal to the rest of the government of the priority of this mission.