Genocide Prevention Task Force: Marching orders for the next administration

Just when we thought genocide would disappear completely from the world's headlines, the United States Institute of Peace Genocide Prevention Task Force has issued its final report. It is a landmark for genocide prevention efforts, not least because the Task Force features genuine policy heavyweights, including former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former Defense Secretary William Cohen.

The report begins with welcome clarity: "People of conscience rightly demand: 'never again.' There is no doubt that genocide and mass atrocities exact a horrific human toll. They constitute a direct assault on universal human values, including, most fundamentally, the right to life."

Equally as important, however, is how the report frames genocide as an issue for US foreign policy:

"Genocide and mass atrocities also threaten core U.S. national interests.

They feed on and fuel other threats in weak and corrupt states, with dangerous spillover effects that know no boundaries. If the United States does not engage early in preventing these crimes, we inevitably bear greater costs—in feeding millions of refugees and trying to manage long-lasting regional crises.

In addition, U.S. credibility and leadership are compromised when we fail to work with international partners to prevent genocide and mass atrocities."

At last, the crux of the matter! Genocide isn't simply a moral atrocity, it is a geopolitical threat. Building on this conclusion, the report outlines several excellent and long-overdue suggestions to make genocide prevention- at last- a core object of American foreign policy. Most apposite to this blog's purposes are the recommendations to direct the Director of National Intelligence to prepare an annual, global analysis of the threat of genocide, and the creation of an interagency Atrocities Prevention task force to respond and prevent escalating situations of mass violence.

Even in an age of climate change, economic collapse, and war, these are inspired recommendations that ought to be on the top of the pile for the next administration. This won't be easy, as The Economist reports. But in dealing with genocide, that should deter no one, for as the Task Force report make clear, the costs of genocide, both moral and geopolitical, are greater than any of us can bear.