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Overview
The Crimes against Humanity program at Human Rights First acts to halt catastrophic violations of human rights currently in progress and to support international efforts to ensure that states fulfill their responsibility to protect people under their jurisdiction from gross violations of human rights. It aims to prevent the recurrence of genocide and other gross violations of human rights. Through public education and advocacy, diplomatic and political interventions, and research, Human Rights First contributes to the establishment of a system of international and national response mechanisms to realize the international community ’s obligation to stop genocide and other crimes against humanity wherever they occur. A primary area of focus of the program is currently the ‘HOPE for Darfur’ campaign, centered around our proposal that the United Nations Secretary-General appoint a high level special envoy to coordinate the peace process in Darfur and sustain international attention to the crisis. Through our work on Darfur and on other situations where crimes against humanity are occurring, Human Rights First supports effective international action to end mass human rights violations, and to ensure that those responsible for those violations are brought to justice.
- Prevention & Protection
- Justice & Accountability
Prevention and Protection
In the last 25 years, in places like Cambodia, Uganda, and Rwanda, the international community has repeatedly failed to take appropriate actions to stop massive human rights violations, including genocide. The Crimes against Humanity program works to create a world in which governments and intergovernmental bodies will be able to prevent such situations from occurring, or to promptly and effectively intervene to halt them when they do occur. In recent years, a number of steps have been taken by the international community towards these objectives, including the recognition by the member states of the United Nations in September 2005 of the principle of ‘Responsibility to Protect’; the appointment in July 2004 of a U.N. Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide; and the establishment in May 2006 of a U.N. Advisory Committee on Genocide Prevention. For more on these initiatives and on Human Rights First’s work in support of them, click on the links below.
Justice and Accountability
Over the past decade, Human Rights First ’s International Justice program has made substantial contributions to the establishment of international tribunals and courts with jurisdiction over war crimes, and crimes against humanity, including genocide. We played a key role in the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and assisted a number of states parties with the process of implementing the provisions of the statute of the court (the Rome Statute) in their national legal systems. The Crimes against Humanity program builds on these past contributions through our continued engagement with the ICC and other international courts, and through our efforts to ensure that courts are able to conduct successful investigations and prosecutions in the various cases they undertake. By promoting an integrated and effective international justice system, capable of providing justice and accountability for genocide and other crimes against humanity, Human Rights First works to combat impunity and thus deter the occurrence of such egregious human rights violations in the future.
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