The Genocide Prevention Program at Columbia University’s CICR (GPP-CICR) Overview

Genocide, while rare, happens all too frequently and is extraordinarily destructive. It is the product of human action and as such can be understood and hopefully prevented. The 20th century was marked by several cases that offer reasons to doubt the human desire to learn lessons from such a behavior. Too many times signs of impending genocides were not identified, appreciated, and acted upon creating condition for a re-emergence of it in new forms.
Preventing genocide is a collective enterprise of knowledge management, strategic ingenuity and political will. It is a possibility that might elude us if we fail to appreciate the link between our ability to understand and act responsibly with the macro structures that are determined by our own responses to the challenges of the moment, while stressing the need to strengthen individuals’ ability to perform well and constructively in a situation of enormous stress.
The Genocide Prevention Program (GPP) at the Center for International Conflict Resolution (GPP-CICR), directed by Dr. Andrea Bartoli, intends to address these issues through the following programs:

1. Advanced Training in Genocide Prevention (ATGP)
   Columbia's Center for International Conflict Resolution (CICR) has launched a five-year-long advanced education and training program on the prevention of genocide for mid-level government career personnel who have exhibited leadership potential from the 192 UN member states. The program, begun in January 2007, aims to inspire dedicated government leaders from around the world and equip them with the knowledge and skills to be effective agents for the prevention of genocide. The first of its kind, the program will bring together diverse young leaders—diplomats, intelligence, military, and human rights officers—for intensive, participatory training through week-long workshops in New York City to be followed by confidential, interactive sessions. The first gathering took place from January 22-27, 2007 and proved to be a great success. There are 12-20 participants in each session and three sessions per year. Following the intensive workshops, the confidential, interactive sessions integrate the knowledge and lessons from all the units offered and give alumni access to consultations from our panel of experts. Additionally, a web-based portal create for the program's participants serves as a platform for information-sharing and alumni collaboration with the objective to create an active, growing network of anti-genocide agents at a national, regional and international level. For more information on ATGP click here.
   
   
2. Genocide Prevention Course
   A course on Genocide Prevention has been offered at SIPA starting in the Spring semester 2005 by CICR in collaboration with the Genocide and Ethnic Center of the City College of New York. The course, co-taught by Dr. Andrea Bartoli of CU and Dr. Henry Huttenbach of CUNY, is now part of the permanent CICR curriculum and will be offered every year. It is an attempt to sharpen the understanding of genocide as a phenomenon through the analysis of four cases (Metz Yeghérn, Shoah, Cambodia, and Itsembamboa). While different in many aspects, these phenomena offer an extraordinary opportunity to analyze systematically the cause and interactions that made genocides possible during the last century. The objective of the course is to integrate the knowledge of specific cases of genocide into an overarching approach that will have an impact on the students’ ability to intervene appropriately in order to maximize the chances of prevention. Other universities have expressed interest in including this course in their curriculum.
   
   
3. Columbia University-Conflict Resolution Network
   The Columbia University-Conflict Resolution Network (CU-CRN) coordinates the activities of the various institutions within Columbia University interested in conflict resolution. The Network also provides important opportunities for scholars and practitioners from the various disciplines to collaborate on research, theory development, practical model building, conflict interventions and resource development. The CU-CRN has initiated a series of coordinated activities, including multidisciplinary courses, seminars, international conferences, training programs, publications, a senior fellows program and the provision of conflict resolution service to the Columbia University community and beyond. In particular CU-CRN will convene the University Seminar on Genocide Prevention.
   
   
4. Global Representation and Genocide Prevention
   Populations vulnerable to discrimination on ethnic, religious, national, or racial grounds, constitute populations at risk whose rights of representation and whose plight are only precariously figured in a world of globalized affairs, interests, and governance. In this context, processes of self-identification, self-representation and self-determination are key to the emergency of an effective global genocide prevention strategy a strategy which imposes genocide prevention approaches on states and international organizations while effectively asserting individual human, social and political rights. The GPP-CICR is conducting research with an aim to explore the needs of vulnerable and endangered populations while investigating mechanisms for broader global political accountability, rights, protections, and inclusion.
   
   
5. Genocide Prevention Program at Auschwitz
   The GPP-CICR will participate in the establishment of an advanced learning center on genocide prevention to be built on the site of the former Auschwitz concentration camp that will focus on education and training of mid-level government career personnel who have exhibited leadership potential. The GPP emerges out of a desire to create and sustain preventative institutions within states. The first step is to have trained, dedicated, and committed leaders. Diplomats, military, and intelligence personnel do not frequently train together. Yet, they often cooperate in international organizations and alliances. The GPP will create a unique and bold education space by bringing these groups of leaders together for fifteen days. The program will be intense and will focus upon participatory involvement with its participants. It will be directed toward providing insights to the formative characteristics of genocide, their commonalties and their individualities. Three genocides of the twentieth century will provide the subjects of examination: Rwanda, Cambodia, and the Holocaust. They offer a view of genocide as they occurred within recent history across geographic, racial, ethnic, religious and cultural divides.