EU commitment needed on preventing mass atrocities

The EU needs to strengthen its commitment, and its strategic toolkit, to prevent mass atrocities, such as those perpetrated in Syria, according to a new report by the Task Force on the EU Prevention of Mass Atrocities, co-chaired by Christoph Meyer, released today. The report reveals that mass atrocity prevention is rarely mentioned in core EU documents despite the EU's commitment to protecting populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, as well as its pledge to promote human rights. The EU's development, conflict prevention and crisis management policies, for example, do not sufficiently focus on mass atrocities, even though these crimes threaten the achievement of the EU's core goals. Christoph Meyer, co-Chair of the Task Force and Professor of European and International Politics at King's, said the EU's intelligence gathering and warning functions do not systematically take into account the possibility of these types of crimes taking place. 'The EU has the expertise, the staying power and the resources to substantially reduce the risks of mass atrocities occurring. In order to do this the EU needs to stop prioritising current crises and improve its ability to act early, before violence has started. This means not only long-term prevention, but also becoming more responsive to warnings, especially when these warnings are politically inconvenient.' The Task Force calls for the EU to make an explicit commitment to prevent mass atrocities and to incorporate this into the next update of the European Security Strategy as well as existing strategies for human rights and conflict prevention.