03 November 1999
Human Rights Experts Discuss Atrocities Prevention
(Koh, Scheffer Brief on Just-Concluded Conference) (690) By Stuart Gorin Washington File Staff Writer Washington -- A just-concluded conference organized to create an atrocities prevention regime brought together 130 government and nongovernment human rights experts from 10 nations. "The conference grew out of the U.S. government's longstanding recognition of a simple truth, namely that massive human rights violations are best addressed before and not after the fact," says Harold Koh, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor. Koh told reporters at the Foreign Press Center November 2 that the conference, held October 28-29 at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, focused on three critical areas: how to identify situations in which massive atrocities are about to occur, how to prevent massive human rights violations in the short term, and how to prevent them in the long term. "How do we support the rebuilding of traumatized societies in a way that promotes economic development, civil reconstruction, justice, democracy and human rights and prevents a relapse into new rounds of crisis and chaos?" he asked. He noted that this concern is of particular relevance in the context of both Kosovo and East Timor. David Scheffer, ambassador at large for war crimes issues, who also attended the briefing, said the process is underway for finalizing a statement of principles for the conference. He said the document, which was drafted by the United States, still has to be cleared by the governments which sent representatives to the conference: Australia, Bosnia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, Israel, South Africa, Sweden and the Holy See. Highlighting some of the provisions of the statement of principles, Scheffer said there is encouragement for enhancement of cooperation among governments, nongovernmental organizations and international organizations on the issue of atrocities prevention, and a call for governments to designate focal points to coordinate information about emerging patterns of atrocities. "There was an interesting discussion about the media at this conference," Scheffer said. "Frankly, the media is often, if not in a large percentage of times, our first warning. It's the journalists who are getting the news quickly, putting it on the wires." He said that governments need to make sure they are seeing this information quickly and paying due heed to it. Scheffer added that Mary Robinson, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, addressed the conference and pointed out that there are in existence very important U.N. human rights institutions that have fact-finding capabilities that need to be properly resourced in order to serve an appropriate function on atrocities prevention. A statement encouraging the work of human rights institutions will be included in the statement of principles, Scheffer said. Commenting on several speakers at the atrocities prevention conference, Scheffer reported that Richard Holbrooke, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said it was absolutely essential that resources match the rhetoric when it comes to atrocities prevention; Betty King, U.S. ambassador to the Economic and Social Council said ECOSOC was moving too slowly in organizing and funding the Commission of Inquiry on East Timor; and California Congressman Tom Lantos asked rhetorically "What if different steps could have taken place with respect to various atrocities around the world?" then what would have happened? Asked if information that is already available from a number of sources on a given atrocity is an indication of a lack of will by governments to act, Scheffer said this was misleading. "Of course there is a lot of information out there, but a lot of it is rumor, a lot of it is speculation. What we are trying to do with our network is give policymakers as quickly as possible the best quality information that we can." Sometimes that information comes from nongovernmental organizations and sometimes from the media, he pointed out, adding that what is needed is a better fix in a much shorter timeframe of how to understand the information and how to get it more quickly. (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State)
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