by Lina Imran
John Hopkins professor William Zartman and the Under-Secretary General, Special Adviser for the prevention of Genocide Dr. Francis M. Deng conducted a lecture on issues of Diagnosing Conflict/Primary Drivers: A Theoretical Foundation and Never Again: The UN’s Efforts to End Genocide respectively on the first day of IPSI training course.
Dr. Zartman broadly shed light in to the nature of conflict and its inevitability, In our day to day lives its most likely that there exists incompatibility hence mainly the challenge lies in handling and managing these conflicts through closely studying the escalation processes.
The statement I found interesting is, all Conflicts are Economic, Political and Over Justice, i.e in many cases the underlying causes of these conflicts are mainly structural in nature which means it takes longer period to deal with the implications and also post conflict reconstructions.
The notion of ‘order’ has also been broadly discussed both at the national and international levels. How the notion affects the balance of power as much as people in general resist uncertainties; there are also groups that resist the current global order.
As of Dr. Deng’s lecture, the dynamics between the legal aspects and political notion of Genocide and what it means. Two major arguments come out clear one is whether to stick with the strict term of genocide that mainly focuses of mass atrocities based on one’s ethnic and tribal identity and on the other hand emphasizing on the destruction of lives regardless of the scale of the problem. In the discussion i came to understand that though a common analysis of framework on genocide exists; yet its up to member states to genuinely protect their citizens responsibly. If the countries fail to protect their citizens its okay to seek help as form of ‘positive intervention.’
The idea strike me most is in the discussions on Responsibility to Protect, one is where by countries require military assistance beyond the necessary limits, on other hand countries involvement is mainly driven by their own political and economic agendas. Therefore the issue when to intervene and how far is always varies depending the context and interests of the actors involved.
Finally, the idea that regional institutions could also play a greater role in integrating the Genocide analysis framework in to their guiding tools to further facilitate the popularization and implementation of the framework in building common principles on this important issue.