Despite a collective commitment, the failure of the world community to stop genocidal violence and humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur and other areas of the world has raised the question of whether the United States and the international community\u00a0have the political will and capacities\u00a0necessary to deter or stop genocide and other mass atrocities.\u00a0 The U.S. Senate, in December 2010, unanimously adopted Concurrent Resolution 71, recognizing the U.S. national interest in preventing and mitigating acts of genocide and other forms of mass atrocities against civilians.<\/p>\n
At the\u00a02005 United Nations World Summit, world leaders agreed that \u201cthe international community, through the United Nations . . . has\u00a0the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian, and other peaceful means . . . to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against\u00a0humanity.\u00a0 In this context, we are prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council . . . should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations . . . .\u201d<\/p>\n
A\u00a0 significant number of U.N. member states have hostility to intervention that is rooted in ideological debates over sovereignty, the distribution of power in the Security Council, and what \u201cresponsibility to protect\u201d means in theory and practice. \u00a0 As a result, the Security Council has been slow to\u00a0escalate its collective response.<\/p>\n
Several major policy studies during the past decade have examined how the United States and its international partners can better meet the challenges of preventing and stopping mass atrocities including genocide\u00a0and systematic ethnic cleansing. Major crises, such as Rwanda in 1994, Kosovo in 1999, and Sudan more recently, generate interest in bolstering the capacity and will of the United States and its partners to respond.<\/p>\n
In 2008, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, in \u201cPreventing Genocide: A Blueprint\u00a0for U.S. Policymakers,\u201d observed:\u00a0\u201cEven when signs of preparation for genocide are apparent, there are opportunities to alter leaders decisions and interrupt their plans.\u00a0 By improving our crisis response system, we will be better prepared to mount coherent and carefully calibrated and timely preventive diplomacy strategies.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2005, the JCPA Resolution on Stopping Genocide in the Sudan, asserted that, \u201cas Jews, living in the shadow of the near annihilation of our people, we know too well the peril and the horror of global indifference, when people turn their backs on those in danger or in need.\u00a0\u00a0 Mindful of the clarion call of our prophets to demand social justice and actively oppose injustice and cruelty and with the memories of the Holocaust in our hearts and minds, we look in horror upon the persecution of any group based on race, religion, or ethnicity, or other distinctions that are used to degrade the value of any human life. We should not permit \u201cnever again\u201d to be a mere slogan.\u00a0 Rather it must represent a firm, moral commitment on our part not to stand idly by in the face of unspeakable terror and violence.\u201d \u00a0In 2009, JCPA resolved that the U.S. Government should \u201cnot exclude the option of military means if feasible, and in coalition with other countries, to protect the innocent civilians in Darfur and to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid.\u201d<\/p>\n
The JCPA believes that:<\/p>\n
The JCPA:<\/p>\n
Despite a collective commitment, the failure of the world community to stop genocidal violence and humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur and other areas of the world has raised the question of whether the United States and the international community\u00a0have the political will and capacities\u00a0necessary to deter or stop genocide and other mass atrocities.\u00a0 The U.S. Senate, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n