3P Program Manager
John Filson presented at the United Nations Institute for Training and
Research’s (UNITAR) Seminar on the Prevention of Genocide in New York City on
January 23, 2013. The seminar was a
collaborative effort between UNITAR and the UN Office on Genocide Prevention
and the Responsibility to Protect that aimed to give its participants a deeper
understanding of the definitions of genocide as well as strategies for the
prevention of genocide.
John spoke about the comparative frameworks of 1) Genocide
Prevention focused on Early Warning and preventing outbreaks of mass
atrocities, and 2) Conflict Prevention focused on the long-term structural
conditions that lead to violent conflict, including episodes of mass violence.
Genocide and mass atrocities do not happen in a vacuum, but
always in the context of long-standing dynamics between groups in conflict such as
political exclusion, economic exploitation, mutual mistrust and demonizing
between groups, and historical grievances. As an analytical framework, Conflict
Prevention provides additional tools that compliment Genocide Prevention and
Early Warning mechanisms to prevent not only atrocities but also address the long-term
conditions that cause them.
The practical benefits of linking Genocide Prevention and
Conflict Prevention frameworks is an on-going area of work for the Alliance for
Peacebuilding and 3P Human Security. 3P Director Dr. Lisa Schirch is currently
conducting research on how these frameworks operate similarly or differently in
practice, and how prevention scholars and practitioners can build better
synergies between these two important approaches to increase the overall
effectiveness of violence prevention in settings of conflict.
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