GPPi presents study on mass atrocity prevention at Heinrich Böll Foundation

On 15 November 2013 at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin, GPPi’s Philipp Rotmann and Gerrit Kurtz presented the core findings of a study on mass atrocity prevention in the first Obama administration’s foreign policy.

During the event, which was moderated by Sergey Lagodinsky, head of the Böll Foundation’s EU/​North America department, Rotmann and Kurtz also recommended how Germany’s foreign-policy makers could prioritize mass atrocity prevention if they so desired.

At the moment there is a debate in Germany over foreign policy priorities in the next four years. Rotmann and Kurtz suggested ways for policymakers, civil society and officials to seriously engage with the issue of mass atrocity prevention. They recommended that civil society organizations develop campaigns that take up the issue of mass atrocity prevention; that civil society and the German parliament set up a cross-party expert commission to grant the issue credibility; and that the future government parties include a broad reference to this issue in the German coalition agreement.

This topic will stay on the international agenda, Rotmann and Kurtz argued, whether or not political parties make the prevention of mass atrocities a larger priority. German policymakers need to be prepared for continued demands by their transatlantic partners.

As they engage with this topic, though, German policymakers should recognize Germany’s differences to the United States. Germany has significantly less civil society mobilization, much more modest ambitions in foreign policy, and far greater mistrust of moral activism in foreign policy among senior policymakers. One overarching lesson to be learned from the US experience is the importance of political leadership in civil society, parliament and government to put mass atrocity prevention higher on the list of foreign policy priorities.

The study was commissioned by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. It was written by Philipp Rotmann, Sarah Brockmeier and Gerrit Kurtz as part of a project called ​“Never Again? The Responsibility to Protect and the Prevention of Mass Atrocities in Obama’s Foreign Policy.”