The Promise of Never Again: Senator Kirk Must Support the Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act

In the wake of the Holocaust, the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities has been a major focus of grassroots organizations, governments, and international institutions alike. After the promise of “Never Again” was broken by the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when the international community failed to prevent the murders of over one million Rwandans, genocide prevention became a prominent topic in foreign policy worldwide. From the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide to the genocides in Darfur in 2004, Bosnia in 1995, Cambodia in 1975, and Syria and Iraq today, the need for action to prevent genocide is ever more pressing.

“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,” says the Genocide Prevention Task Force Report, which was created to give key policy guidance to the US government on issues of genocide and mass atrocities. “If the United States does not engage early in preventing these crimes, we inevitably bear great costs—in feeding millions of refugees and trying to manage long-lasting regional crises.”  

Over the past several years, the United States has taken significant steps to implement genocide prevention policies. Based on a suggestion from the Genocide Prevention Task Force, the Atrocities Prevention Board (APB) was created by President Obama in 2011. The APB is a high-level interagency working group tasked with coordinating a whole-of-government approach to preventing mass atrocities and genocide. It is composed of representatives from the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, USAID, the US Mission to the United Nations, the Office of the Vice President, the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA, and the FBI, among others.

While the inner-workings of the APB are kept confidential, the board is credited with several successes. Most notable are the APB’s actions in Burundi and the Central African Republic. To deal with violence in Burundi, the APB allowed the State Department and USAID to create an interagency team with the Burundian government to conduct a thorough analysis of risks of violence, which led to a broad diplomatic engagement and programmatic strategy. In the Central African Republic, the APB mobilized the Complex Crisis Fund to provide over $100 million in peacekeeping and security assistance and $30 million for conflict mitigation, reconciliation, justice and accountability, and governance.

The Atrocities Prevention Board has become an essential aspect of the US’s genocide prevention strategy. While it has been critiqued for its failure to prevent the Syria crisis, the successes in Burundi and the Central African Republic prove the importance of the APB in tangibly saving lives. While the APB is an imperfect institution in many ways, allowing it to dissolve would severely hurt the United States’s ability to respond to situations of genocide and mass atrocities.

However, as the Obama administration prepares to leave office, the APB’s existence has come under threat. For the board to continue into the next administration, Congress must pass the Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act.

The bipartisan bill, introduced by Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) and supported by Republican senators Lisa Murkowski (AK), Richard Burr (NC), and Susan Collins (ME), has three key aims: (1) the permanent institutionalization of the Atrocities Prevention Board, (2) the appropriation of money to the Complex Crises Fund, which allows timely investments and flexible funding to peacebuilding and prevention initiatives, and (3) the requirement of training for Foreign Service Officers in conflict and atrocity prevention.

Getting any piece of legislation passed in a presidential election year is hard. For the Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act, there are remaining hurdles to overcome—the most urgent being the need for Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), the chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, to schedule a markup of the bill within his committee with sufficient time for the bill to pass through Congress, which thus far he has refused to do.   

As a longtime champion of human rights, Senator Mark Kirk holds a responsibility to his constituents, the rest of the nation, and the international community as a whole to support this piece of legislation. Furthermore, Kirk must ensure that genocide prevention remains a top priority by pushing his Senate colleagues, particularly Corker, to ensure the bill is considered and passed.

Kirk has a strong history of leading human rights work. In collaboration with Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), he founded the Senate Human Rights Caucus in 2014. The caucus is tasked with educating senators on the most severe human rights violations and creating a space to work towards tangible solutions. In 2015, Kirk, along with Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), introduced Senate Resolution 140, which calls on the administration to recognize and commemorate the Armenian genocide. In introducing the resolution, Kirk drew attention to the role that recognition of past genocides has in preventing future genocides. In 2011, Kirk joined a bipartisan group of twenty-nine other senators in a letter of support for a strategic approach to genocide prevention and support of the Atrocities Prevention Board in particular.

Now it is time for Kirk to practice what he preaches.

“America has been the defender and hope for persecuted people across the globe. It is a trait that has defined our nation as unique in the history of the world,” said Tillis when the act was introduced. “The rise of terrorist cults like ISIL and al-Shabaab that are committing genocide against minority ethnic and religious groups has created a desperate need for American leadership and moral clarity.”

As constituents, we must call on Kirk to commit to preempting international conflict, preventing the deployment of American troops, bolstering national security, and protecting religious minorities across the world by co-sponsoring the Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act. Standing against genocide and other mass atrocities is a core tenet of American values and one that we must fully commit to until “Never Again” is a reality.

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