Implementing The Duty to Prevent Genocide: Global Approaches

London 6 July, 9:30AM-10:30 AM BST

House of Lords

Article I of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention) is clear that State Parties have two important obligations, a duty to prevent and a duty to punish the crime of genocide. However, the Genocide Convention does not clarify how to implement these obligations. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its 2007 judgment states that the duty to prevent genocide is to be triggered when the State ‘learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed.’ The judgment further adds that ‘from that moment onwards, if the State has available to it means likely to have a deterrent effect on those suspected of preparing genocide, or reasonably suspected of harbouring specific intent (dolus specialis), it is under a duty to make such use of these means as the circumstances permit.’ As such, the judgment identifies the trigger point for the duty to prevent and what the state is obliged to do to implement its obligation under the Genocide Convention. The question that follows is: how do governments learn or should have learned of the serious risk of genocide?

The panelists will engage with these questions commenting on practices adopted by different governments and the mechanisms needed to ensure that governments are able to fulfill their duty to prevent.

Speakers include:

Baroness Kennedy QC, UK House of Lords, Director of IBAHRI

Lord Alton of Liverpool, UK House of Lords, Vice-Chair of the APPG on Uyghurs, APPG on Yazidis

Archbishop Angaelos, Coptic Orthodox Archbishop of London, Director of Refcemi

Pari Ibrahim, Founder and Executive Director of the Free Yezidi Foundation

Further speakers to be announced.