Yesterday, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 2717 (2014), ostensibly committing itself "to better utilizing all tools of the United Nations system to ensure that warning signs of impending bloodshed [are] translated into 'concrete preventative action.'" Among many phrases and clauses, that resolution included the following:
In light of that admonition, the Security Council
It's reasonable to be cynical about resolutions like this one. The U.N. resolves to do lots of things that don't end up happening. As Lawrence Woocher described in a report prepared for the Office of the Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General on the Prevention of Genocide nearly 10 years ago (here), there are many bureaucratic impediments to producing useful early warning of mass atrocities and then acting on them. Our system is not going to solve all the problems enumerated in that report, of course, but it can move the needle on one of them. In his report Woocher notes that:
What if the UN doesn't have to create and maintain that capacity because it already exists elsewhere? That's the point of our system. Early warning isn't even close to sufficient for effective prevention, but it is necessary. If we and like-minded efforts can provide the UN and other organizations aspiring to prevent mass atrocities with earlier and more accurate assessments of risk, we can marginally expand the time, and thus the range of tools, available for preventive action. That's not a solution, but it is an improvement.