Co-Directors Annual Report

September 2017

Message from the Co-Directors

The first year of the Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention (I-GMAP) at Binghamton University has been highly productive and we are pleased to share in this report a summary of accomplishments and on-going activities.

As many reading this report will already know, the gift of a half million dollars over four years from an anonymous donor which was facilitated by Binghamton University alumnus Owen Pell allowed for the establishment of the Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention in fall 2016. You will see below that we have made strides in each of our priority areas: new academic programming, promoting research that can inform effective prevention strategies, and bridging the divide between practitioners and scholars.

In this first year, we have established relationships with key partners from nongovernmental, governmental, and educational sectors in the United States and throughout the world which have the potential to expand our reach and ensure that we are working in collaboration rather than in competition with others committed to the same goal. These partnerships are informing curriculum development, conference plans, research, and more. Most notably, we are expanding our partnership with the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation (AIPR). In June, Nadia was an observer at AIPR’s Lemkin Seminar for the Latin American Network for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, and Max will be an observer at the Lemkin Global Seminar later this year. These seminars are providing us with essential content for the academic programs, helping us develop contacts with practitioners who participate in the seminars as well as the instructors who teach the various modules, and creating additional collaboration opportunities with individuals and organizations. Max also recently attended an AIPR workshop at Kean University which is contributing to ideas for our conference and other activities. We have informal agreements with a wide array of nongovernmental organizations in all regions of the world who are interested in hosting our graduate students for hands-on externships in the field; we will formalize those relationships as we proceed.

We also have a pledge of $25,000 from another donor to serve as seed money to promote the study of the nexus of gender and genocide prevention. We are looking forward to advancing this emphasis as part of our broader mission.

In October we will move into our new space in Library North, Ground Floor Suite 100 (near political science and the Copy Center) and we will welcome Kathy Michaels as our new secretary to provide administrative support for our work. This space will house the two of us, Michael, our post-doctoral fellow, our doctoral assistants and our practitioners-in-residence. It will also include a conference room which we will utilize regularly and offices for a new Institute for Human Rights.

We hope you find this report informative. Feel to contact either of us at any time with ideas and suggestions. Thank you for your continued support of this vitally important work.

New York City Launch Event

We had a very successful launch event in New York City on April 20, which featured Pablo de Greiff, the U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence. de Greiff spoke passionately about the importance of the Institute’s prevention focus and as a bridge between the academic and practitioner worlds. He emphasized its potential to make a concrete difference in the lives of people around the world who need it most.

Check out photos from the event as well as the news coverage of the event. We have ongoing conversations with de Greiff about opportunities for I-GMAP faculty and students to collaborate with him on the multitude of projects in which he is engaged.

New Academic Programs

We are very excited to inform you that the University-wide undergraduate interdisciplinary minor in Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention has been officially approved and is available to students beginning in the fall. If you know of students who are attending Binghamton University or considering universities and are interested in these issues, please encourage them to reach out to us for more information.

The process for securing approval for the graduate programs is a little more complicated, but is underway. The proposal for a graduate certificate in GMAP affiliated with the Master of Public Administration (MPA) program has been submitted. The program, which will consist of 13-16 credits using a model similar to the UG Minor format, will be available to students across all graduate disciplines. At this time, we are authorized to state “A graduate certificate in Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention is under development"; contact the I-GMAP co-directors for more information. We are also developing the formal proposal for a stand-alone professional master’s degree although the approval processes within the SUNY system and New York state for that can take a little longer.

There is already interest in these graduate programs among current Binghamton University students as well as those looking for a place to pursue their graduate studies, including genocide prevention professionals from several countries. We are also in discussions with colleagues at Rosario University in Bogotá, Colombia, and the Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention program at Cardoza Law School in New York City about formal dual degree opportunities for students.

Welcome Gabriella Lloyd, I-GMAP Post-Doctoral Fellow

Our first post-doctoral fellow, Gabriella Lloyd from Ohio State University, started working in August with a home base in the Political Science Department.

Lloyd’s dissertation tracks the effectiveness of armed humanitarian peacekeeping programs by the UN and other global actors. Despite the current popularity of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as a first-response to situations of severe human vulnerability, Lloyd's research suggests that R2P, as currently practiced, is far less effective at preventing or reducing violence against civilians than its proponents assert. Her research suggests that the causes for this counter-intuitive finding lie in the inadequate understanding among R2P's proponents of the differently aligned incentives for state actors and armed rebel groups, specifically the misleading assumption that the latter will interpret the threat and effects of peacekeeping intervention in ways substantially like the former. Understanding the very different modes of assessing the prospect of R2 between states and rebel groups, Lloyd suggests, will compel international actors to revise how, when, whether, and why they employ armed peacekeeping forces. We are confident that Gaby will be a terrific addition to our I-GMAP community. In addition to furthering her research, she will teach a class in support of the I-GMAP minor and/or graduate offerings in the spring 2018 semester.

With support from the Institute, the Harpur College Dean’s Office and the Department of Political Science, Lloyd has organized a speaker series which will span the entire academic year. The first speaker will be Megan Stewart from American University who will present her research on civil war and rebel governance on Sept. 29. Subsequent speakers will be announced via the I-GMAP website.

Practitioner-in-Residence Program to Begin

Our Practitioner-in-Residence program kicks off in 2017-18 with a visit from a member of our I-GMAP External Advisory Board, Ambassador Liberata Mulamula. She will be on campus from Sept. 30 through Oct. 6 and will be the featured speaker for our Homecoming event (see next item).

Mulamula is a career diplomat with 35 years of experience having served in various capacities at the Tanzania Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its diplomatic missions abroad including ambassador to the United States of America and Mexico (July 2013 to May 2015). She also served as senior diplomatic advisor to the former Tanzania President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete and undersecretary for foreign affairs. She was the first executive secretary of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region of Africa for Peace, Stability and Development with headquarters in Bujumbura, Burundi, covering 12 post-conflict and other countries of the region including Angola, Burundi, Central Africa Republic, Kenya, Republic of Congo, Republic of Sudan, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Mulamula is a graduate of St. John's University (MA govt. and politics) and recipient of the Order of the United Republic of Tanzania 2015 Award for Distinguished Public Service. Mulamula is currently a visiting scholar at the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs' Institute for African Studies. Her areas of interest are conflict resolution, peace mediation, and women and leadership in Africa.

The week after Mulamula's visit, we will host another member of our Advisory Board, Professor and Juris Doctor Per Berling from Umeå University in Sweden, who previously served as Sweden's R2P Focal Point. In November, we will welcome a third Advisory Board member, Eduardo Gonzalez. Gonzalez is an expert in transitional justice and formerly served as director of the Truth and Memory Program for the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). In April 2018, we will welcome to campus Juanita Goebertus Estrada from Bogotá, Colombia. She is director of Latin American Projects for the Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT). Goebertus Estrada's visit will coincide with our first conference.

Practitioners-in-residence will make public presentations, speak to classes, meet with faculty and students, and discuss with the co-directors opportunities for continued collaborations. Watch for subsequent notices from the Institute with details of these visits, invitations to participate and reports. We welcome informal nominations, including self-nominations, of prospective future practitioners-in-residence.

I-GMAP Homecoming Events

Binghamton University's Homecoming Weekend on October 6-8, 2017, will provide us with an opportunity for an on-campus public launch of the Institute. We have three events planned for Friday, Oct. 6.

We will also have the honor of welcoming back to campus Edward Weisband who taught for many years in Binghamton's Political Science Department and now serves as the Edward S. Diggs Endowed Chair in the Social Sciences at Virginia Tech. Weisband, also a member of our Advisory Board, will discuss his latest book from Oxford University Press, The Macabresque: Human Violation and Hate in Genocide, Mass Atrocity, and Enemy-Making. He will present a public talk, co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science, about his new book from 1:15-2:15 p.m. in Academic A-G021.

That same evening, we will showcase a public talk by Ambassador Mulamula at 5 p.m. on the topic of "African Regional and National Mechanisms on Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocity: The Missing Link." The talk will be held in the Casadesus Recital Hall in the Fine Arts Building.

Finally, we will host a reception for the institute from 6-8 p.m. in the Admissions Building lobby. At the reception we have the pleasure of hearing remarks by Nancy Steinson Ehrlich, trusted assistant of Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term 'genocide' and worked tirelessly for its recognition within international law. She will speak about his life, accomplishments and vision, and she will also honor the Institute with the gift of a photo of Raphael Lemkin which will be unveiled at the reception and then displayed in the Institute offices.

For those who attend any of these events and are interested, we hope to be able to offer quick tours of our nearly completed office suite.

Research Grants

We have awarded our first round of research grants to support two projects which will be undertaken in the coming year. For the first project, titled Preventing Mass Atrocities by Promoting the Rights of Indigenous Populations: A Study of Country and Regional Network Efforts, Accomplishments and Lingering Challenges in Latin America, Nadia Rubaii and Susan Appe (Public Administration) will work in collaboration with the Latin American Network for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention and the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation (AIPR) to conduct an 18-country comparative analysis of government policies and practices regarding protection of the rights of indigenous populations as a means of genocide prevention, and will develop case studies of promising practices in select countries. This project is designed to generate practitioner reports in Spanish and English, as well as scholarly publications and teaching resources, and is supplemented by support from a Lois B. DeFleur International Innovations grant and a small matching grant from the Center for Learning and Teaching for development of a multi-media case study.

The second project, titled Creating Safe Spaces for LGBT Refugees from Muslim-Dominated Countries, will be conducted by Dara Silberstein (Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies) in collaboration with CUNY Citizenship Now! and university colleagues and LGBT networks in Morocco to examine how attitudes toward LGBT people in both Muslim-dominated countries and in the United States exacerbate the risks of among LGBT refugees in their decisions to come out and to seek refugee status. Her research will have a specific emphasis on Morocco while also having broader implications.

We received other promising proposals that we hope will be further refined and resubmitted for consideration in subsequent years. The call for proposals for the second round of grants will be released in October.

Engaging the Public

In the spirit of engagement beyond the confines of the academy, as I-GMAP Co-Directors we have recently published two articles for a general public audience related to the priorities of the Institute via the online publication The Conversation. Binghamton University is a founding partner of The Conversation, which is dedicated to making academic scholarship accessible to the general public and which allows for free republication by other news outlets to increase the reach of its articles.

In July, our article "Are State Department cuts a major setback for genocide prevention?" critically evaluated to what extent rumored cuts of genocide prevention-focused units within the State Department represent real or largely symbolic changes. This reached an audience of over 10,000 readers through The Conversation, Huffington Post, and a range of local and regional newspapers.

In August, we wrote a piece titled "Warning signs of mass violence – in the U.S.?", in which we applied an established model of the 10 stages of genocide to the U.S. context. In this article, we warn that there are indicators representing stages one through four, as well as stage six, although we also note some positive signs of recognition and resistance which can aid in prevention. This article has been read by more than 31,000 in less than a month since it was published, largely due to re-publication by Salon.

First Annual Conference Coming in April 2018: "Frontiers of Prevention"

Our first conference on the theme "Frontiers of Prevention" will be held April 13-14, 2018. With assistance from our doctoral research assistant, Brendan "Skip" Mark, we applied for and secured a Conversations in the Disciplines grant from SUNY to supplement Institute funds. We also intend to ask relevant Transdisciplinary Areas of Excellence (TAEs) on campus, including those on Citizenship, Rights and Cultural Belonging; Sustainable Communities; and Material and Visual Worlds; as well as the Transdisciplinary Working Group on Poverty and Inequality to see if they would like to provide some assistance and be involved it the conference.

The intention of this inaugural conference is to initiate dialogue, exchange insights and experiences, and explore areas of possible creative collaboration between the academic world and the community of prevention-focused practitioners, both in government service and in civil society. The conference theme, Frontiers of Prevention, is a broad-based inquiry into what is new, emergent, or possible in the current landscape of prevention efforts. Possible areas of inquiry include: what is the current status and future prospects of R2P? How does (or doesn't) empirical research in the causes and triggers of atrocity crimes bear on the formation and implementation of policy for NGOs or state actors? What prospects do emerging information, media, or imaging technologies hold for new prevention approaches? What role do climate change or migration play in the prediction and prevention of atrocities? How can changes to social norms, education curricula, and public policies regarding gender, indigenous populations, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, etc. contribute to prevention? How can the communication and collaboration between University-based researchers and practitioners be improved?

In addition to bringing together scholars and practitioners, the conference will provide an opportunity to convene directors of other university-based institutes and centers dedicated to genocide studies and prevention so that we can ensure that we are collaborating and learning from and with each other, and not competing with each other or reinventing the wheel. View the Call for Proposals, share it widely with practitioners and scholars whom you know, and consider joining us.

I-GMAP Advisory Bodies

The work of the I-GMAP co-directors is informed by two important groups of experts, one internal and one external.

Our internal Faculty Advisory Committee consists of: Susan Appe (public administration), Bat-Ami Bar On (philosophy, and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies), Lubna Chaudhry (human development), David Cingranelli (political science), Dave Clark (political science), John Frazier (geography), Douglas R. Holmes (anthropology), Ricardo René Larémont (political science and sociology), Francesca Piana (history), Florenz Plassmann (economics), Jean H. Quataert (history) and Aleksey Tikhomirov (public administration and School of Management). This group is helping to identify existing classes from across the University and develop new ones to support our academic programming, and engaging in and encouraging research in support of I-GMAP goals.

Our External Advisory Board includes an impressive array of experts from around the world. We will count on them to: help articulate the most pressing areas of research; participate in and promote our annual conferences; identify or themselves serve as practitioners-in-residence; and partner with us in support of our mutual interests in prevention. Links are provided to biographical information about each of them so you can appreciate their credentials:

• Simon Adams, Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
• Andrea Bartoli, Dean, School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University
• Per Berling, JD, Department of Law, Umeå University, Sweden, Former Swedish R2P Focal Point
• Mark Freeman, Executive Director, Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT), Barcelona, Spain
• Tibi Galis, Executive Director, Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation (AIPR)
• Eduardo Gonzalez, transitional justice expert and former Director of the Truth and Memory Program, International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
• Pablo de Greiff, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence; Director of Transitional Justice Program, New York University School of Law
• Liberata Mulamula, Visiting Scholar, Institute for African Studies, George Washington University, Former Tanzanian Ambassador to the United States • William O'Neill, Program Director, Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum (CPPF), Social Science Research Council
• Mark Osiel, Aliber Family Chair in Law, University of Iowa
• William R. Pace, Executive Director, World Federalist Movement – Institute for Global Policy, International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect
• Guusju Korthals Altes, Head Economic Section, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Warsaw, Poland
• Owen Pell, President, Board of Directors, Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation, and Partner, White & Case LLP
• James Waller, Cohen Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Keene State College, and Director of Academic Programs for AIPR
• Dr. Edward Weisband, Edward S. Diggs Endowed Chair in the Social Sciences, Virginia Tech We are most appreciative of the willingness of these individuals to contribute their expertise to the success of I-GMAP.

Opportunities to Support the Work of I-GMAP

The generous founding donation to establish the Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention has allowed us the opportunity to initiate activities in the areas highlighted above. Binghamton University has augmented this support from the start by providing course releases and summer salary for the Co-Directors, an operating budget to facilitate their travel and other operations, a doctoral student assistant, as well as considerable visibility for this initiative as a University priority. As noted above, the University's support is now extending to include designated space for the Institute and secretarial support.

Our long-term success depends on our ability to secure grant funds and to generate additional support from individuals and organizations dedicated to the work of genocide and mass atrocity prevention so that the Institute's activities are sustainable. Our most immediate priorities for the coming year beyond what is highlighted in other parts of this report include developing and securing financing for:

• Scholarships to support professional externships for graduate GMAP master's students and shadow-a-practitioner experiences for the undergraduate GMAP minor students. We see these applied experiences as essential elements of the academic programming to ensure that the knowledge and skills are transferable to practice. We do not want experiential experiences to be limited to students who are financially well off or to organizations that can afford to pay for student interns; this should be available to all students and to a full range of organizations. Beyond the scholarships themselves, development of the placements and oversight of the program will also require support for an additional doctoral student.
• Development of expertise in the study of the intersection of gender and genocide prevention. We know that the experience of women and girls as victims of genocide and mass atrocities is qualitatively and quantitatively unique, but more attention is needed to the role of women and women's groups in post-conflict settings and in prevention efforts. A donor has provided us with seed money to begin the process of establishing I-GMAP as a leader in this area and we have many ideas for how to expand that work.
• A more comprehensive Practitioner-in-Residence (PiR) program to include more individuals throughout the year and for longer periods of time. Our current programming will provide for a small number of PiRs each year to be on campus for 1-2 weeks. Our goal is to have at least 6-8 PiRs on an annual basis and to allow those who are interested to spend more time so that they have the time and space to reflect on write about their experiences and to partner with faculty on applied research.
• A cadre of Post-Doctoral Research Fellows from a diverse array of disciplines who can work together in applying their research to priority issues identified by practitioners. We currently are able to support one post-doctoral fellow per year to dedicate time to furthering the most promising prevention-focused research. Our goal is to bring together several fellows annually from multiple academic disciplines, who collectively would have an even greater potential to generate new and useful research. We would also like to push the boundaries of disciplines engaged in prevention-focused research beyond political science, law, sociology, and other social sciences, to include, for example, engineering, computer science, nursing, literature, fine arts, business administration, etc.
• An expansion of our annual conferences to allow for us to include more international participants and to cover the additional costs associated with getting to Binghamton. Our vision is of a conference that genocide prevention practitioners and scholars come to look forward to and participate in regularly. For those working in U.N.-linked NGOs in New York City, the Binghamton location will provide an opportunity to get out of the City and focus on the dialogues. But getting to Binghamton is not easy or inexpensive for international travelers, and we do not want that to be a deterrent.

If you or anyone you know might be interested and able to support one of these initiatives or the general work of the Institute, we would love to talk with you more. Contact either of the co-directors or John Koch (jkoch@binghamton.edu) in the Division of Advancement.