The UK urgently needs to adopt a national strategy for preventing and responding to mass atrocities that result from global conflicts and human rights crises, a new report has said.
The International Development Select Committee publication - From Srebrenica to a safer tomorrow: Preventing future mass atrocities around the world - highlighted the need to confront recent suspected mass atrocities in many regions of the world.
It comes as Russia is suspected of committing likely war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine, and alongside concerns that the United Nations Security Council is increasingly being prevented from acting by its veto-wielding members.
The report comes at the end of a year-long committee inquiry which heard evidence from international experts, charities and other organisations.
Among those to provide written evidence to the inquiry was Ben Willis, Associate Lecturer in Politics and International Relations in the School of Society and Culture, and an expert in international security and human rights.
His research focuses on the range of political, legal and ethical issues surrounding the prevention of mass atrocities, and how those issues are represented in UK Government policy.
Ben Willis
Speaking about the new publication, which includes substantial references to his written evidence, he said:
"This report builds on the invaluable work of parliamentarians, civil society, and academia over recent years. It makes clear the vital role that the UK has to offer as a 'development superpower' in helping to predict, prevent, and respond to genocide and other mass atrocity crimes, which remain an all-too-common feature of the international system. Most importantly, the committee sets out an ambitious but realistic agenda for reform, and rightly emphasises the longstanding need for the UK government to adopt a comprehensive atrocity prevention strategy."
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