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Preventing Genocide

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About the Committee on Conscience

Speaker Series

Overview

The Committee on Conscience regularly hosts presentations related to the prevention and punishment of genocide. In lectures, panel discussions, films, and interviews, analysts offer expert insight into the places where genocide has occurred and the questions of how to prevent and punish it. Transcripts, photos, and other features from these events are available below. The opinions expressed in these interviews do not necessarily represent those of the Museum.

To find out about upcoming events, visit the Museum’s calendar, and to receive event announcements, join our newsletter.


Featured Speaker Series

In Search of Accountability: Justice after Nuremberg

In Search of Accountability: Justice after Nuremberg
On February 2, 2011, the Museum hosted a distinguished panel of leaders in the field of international justice to assess whether a lasting system of accountability for the world’s most serious crimes is finally coming into place.

Since the Nuremberg trials of 1945–46, democracies have struggled to establish a legal infrastructure to hold accountable those responsible for genocide, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. The experts discussed whether the mechanisms created by this tribunal are up to the task today of delivering justice to the perpetrators of wartime atrocities and what strategies are required for nations to deal with a new generation of non-state violent extremists.

Tags: Justice, Legacies, Responses
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Forecasting Mass Violence: Developing a Public Early Warning System/ Sudikoff Annual Interdisciplinary Seminar

Forecasting Mass Violence: Developing a Public Early Warning System/ Sudikoff Annual Interdisciplinary Seminar
Virtually every study on the subject of the prevention of genocide and mass killing affirms that intervention is more likely to be successful the earlier it begins. Despite the widespread recognition of the need for early warning, there is still no systematic, publicly available process for forecasting these atrocities. As part of the effort to fill this critical gap, the Museum sponsored a research project on the development of an accurate and reliable early warning system for genocide and mass killing and hosted a seminar that convened a group of experts from a variety of relevant fields to explore the key aspects of designing and operating such a system.

Tags: Human Rights, Prevention, Responses
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Voices From Congo: The Road Ahead

Voices From Congo: The Road Ahead
On July 26, 2011 the Museum hosted Voices From Congo: The Road Ahead, a unique conference that brought to Washington a Congolese perspective on the political and human rights situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and helped inform U.S. policy on Congo with constructive ideas and recommendations.

Tags: DR Congo, Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, Humanitarian Update
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UN Secretary-General Tours the Museum

UN Secretary-General Tours the Museum
On February 28, 2011, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited the Museum, touring the Permanent Exhibition, The Holocaust, and the Museum’s display on contemporary genocide, From Memory to Action. Coming to the Museum directly from meeting with President Barack Obama, the Secretary-General also made a written pledge in the From Memory to Action installation. “‘Never again’ is a clarion call to moral action,” Ban wrote. “It is for all people in all places in all times. Let us write a new history for humankind.”

Tags: Holocaust, Prevention, Responses
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International Symposium on Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities

International Symposium on Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities
On November 15th, 2010, leading genocide prevention and human rights officials and experts from around the world gathered together in Paris for an international symposium to assess the current capacities of governments to effectively respond to genocide and mass atrocities and to recommend strategies to enhance international cooperation.  The symposium was convened by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris.

Tags: Sudan, Prevention, Responses
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Our Walls Bear Witness: Sudan at the Crossroads

Our Walls Bear Witness: Sudan at the Crossroads
Projected on the Museum's exterior walls for three evenings in November 2010, a short film and dozens of photographs opened a window into the lives of the people of South Sudan. The images were taken by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Lucian Perkins, who joined Mike Abramowitz and Andrew Natsios on a recent Museum-sponsored bearing witness trip to assess conditions in South Sudan, as the region prepares for a referendum on its independence.

Tags: Sudan, Prevention
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