News Investigators/ The United Nations’ Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Chaloka Beyani says conflicts are increasingly targeting civilians and heightening the risk of atrocity crimes globally.
Mr Beyani gave the warning ahead of the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime on December 9.
The UN official also warned that the world is witnessing an alarming erosion of respect for international law amidst the rise in global atrocity.
The Office on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect functions as an early warning system within the UN.
It alerts the Secretary-General, the Security Council and the wider UN system, in that order, when the risk of atrocity crimes, including genocide, is detected.
The Office draws on the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and legal opinions on genocide-related court cases.
The Office also monitors and analyses 14 factors, ranging from armed conflict involving ethnic or religious groups, to hate speech, and the collapse of the rule of law, among others.
Genocide is coined from the Greek prefix genos (meaning, people, race or tribe) and Latin suffix cide (meaning, killing).
According to international law, genocide means any of the acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.
These include killing members of a group or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a group.
It also includes deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
The other is imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
When these risks show a violent pattern, Beyani issues advisories and coordinates responses with UN officials, maintaining close links with regional organisations like the AU, the EU and other international mechanisms.
“Once our Office sounds the alarm, it signals that the threshold is about to be crossed,” he said.
“Our role is not to determine genocide but to prevent it,”
The adviser noted that indigenous communities, often targeted in disputes over land and natural resources, are among the groups most in need of protection.
“Extraction industries and deliberate actions against them put them at enormous risk,” he said.
“Their identity and way of life make them particularly vulnerable, Beyani emphasised, stressing that his Office defers to international courts to determine whether the crime has been committed.
The Special Adviser also underscored the important role of courts and justice in the protection of vulnerable people.
“The one thing that you want to do in the context of dealing with atrocities is to make aware those who are participating in conflicts that they’re being watched and monitored,” Beyani said.
“Prevention includes accountability,” the Special Adviser said.
Among emerging threats which Beyani’s Office monitors are misinformation and hate speech.
His Office works with technology companies like Meta and Google to address online incitement and with religious and community leaders to counter hate narratives at the local level.
In spite of the gravity of his mandate, the Special Adviser remains focused on diplomacy and prevention over public condemnation.
“This Office was designed to engage quietly, to advise the Secretary-General and the Security Council, and to make public statements when necessary,” he explained.
“States see it as threatening in some respects.”
The Special Adviser emphasised that prevention requires memory as much as action.
“Commemoration of past genocides reminds us of the UN’s founding promise of ‘never again,’ and the basis upon which the Genocide Convention stands” he said.
He noted the preparations for the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime on December 9.
“But remembrance alone is not enough. We must strengthen our tools, build trust, and act early,” he stressed.
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