ABSTRACT
The first part of any system for directly preventing genocide and mass atrocities (as opposed to reducing the background risks) is its early warning mechanism. It is therefore appropriate that the UN Secretary-General has focused on early warning as the first stage of his implementation agenda for RtoP. Simply put, international actors, states and local communities have a better chance of preventing the escalation of conflict into violence and mass atrocities if they are warned about the impending threat.2 Advance warning provides decision-makers with evidence to support priority-setting and informs debate about appropriate responses to the threat of violent conflict.3 Early action tends to be associated with a higher level of success and lower financial cost than late action or action that waits to respond only once violence has broken out. According to James Sutterlin, effective early warning mech anisms must have three components – access to information, analysis capabilities, and a com - munication channel to decision-makers capable of authorizing timely and effective preventive measures.4 The need to see early warning as encom passing more than simply the acquisition of information is made clear by the fact that some of the worst recent atrocities, such as the war in Bosnia and genocide in Rwanda, were predicted in advance – the former by the CIA in reports that were only made public after the war had begun and the latter with startling clarity by the commander of the UN’s mission in Rwanda, General Romeo Dallaire. The problem in both cases was that the warnings were issued on an ad hoc basis to institutions that were not specifically tasked with preventing atrocities. The US government chose not to share the CIA’s advice with others, and General Dallaire was advised by the UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) that preventive measures such as the disarmament of militia groups were beyond the scope of UNAMIR’s mandate.5
