WHO
WE ARE
Genocide Watch is the Founder and Coordinator of the Alliance Against Genocide. Our team manages and coordinates alliance operations, member recruitment, and member relations.
MISSION & HISTORY
The Alliance Against Genocide is an international coalition dedicated to creating the international institutions and the political will to prevent genocide. Founded in 1999, the Alliance is made up of over 65 organizations from around the world and was the first coalition of organizations focused completely on preventing genocide.
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The Alliance Against Genocide has four goals:
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1. The provision of public information on the nature of genocide and creation of the political will to prevent and stop it.
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2. The creation of effective early-warning systems to alert the world and especially the U.N., regional organizations and national
governments about potential ethnic conflict and genocide.
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3. Motivation of international, regional, and national action to stop genocidal processes, including effective diplomacy and mobilization of rapid response forces to prevent and stop genocide.
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4. Effective arrest, trial, and punishment of those who commit genocide, including the effective functioning of the International Criminal Court, the use of national courts with universal jurisdiction, and the creation of special courts to prosecute perpetrators of genocide.
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DEFINITION OF GENOCIDE
Following the Genocide Convention, The Alliance Against Genocide defines genocide as “the intentional destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”
The Alliance is also concerned about mass killing and other crimes against humanity that are included in Raphael Lemkin’s original definition of genocide. The Alliance works to prevent political mass murder, femicide and mass rape, cultural destruction, racism, religious persecution, slavery, persecution on the basis of sexual or gender identity, use of child soldiers, use of weapons of mass destruction, war crimes, and other crimes against humanity. It does not get bogged down in debates about whether mass killing meets the legal definition of genocide. Its goal is to prevent and stop all forms of mass murder.
GENOCIDE & POLITICAL WILL
Through its member organizations, the Alliance aims to create an early warning network to provide warnings of genocidal processes to governments, journalists, relief and health workers, religious leaders, whistle-blowers, and ordinary citizens. It aims to create a public, open source intelligence network that will warn of ethnic and other conflict before it turns into genocide.
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Building the political will for action is the major task. Among the defense mechanisms used to justify non-action is denial of the facts. The first job in preventing and stopping genocide is getting the facts in clear, indisputable form to policy makers. Much of that job is done by the news media. But conveying the information is not enough. It must be interpreted so that policy makers understand that genocidal massacres are systematic, or that the portents of genocide are as compelling as warnings of a hurricane. Options for action must be suggested to policy makers, and they must be lobbied to take action.
CHAIR ORGANIZATION
Genocide Watch is the Founder and Coordinator of the Alliance Against Genocide. It sponsors the Alliance website, www.againstgenocide.org,where Alliance members post news of their activities, research reports, notices of events and meetings, and appeals to join campaigns to influence public authorities.
Genocide Watch also sponsors its own website, www.genocidewatch.com, which publicizes news of events that are indicators of genocidal processes, reports on countries of special concern, educational tools for teachers and students of genocide, historical accounts of genocides, analytic articles about genocide, and news of international tribunals and national courts that try persons accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes,