It has been 30 years since the U.S. Congress passed a law to address the prevention of atrocities. We hope to break this congressional silence soon with passage of the bipartisan Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018 (H.R. 3030/S.1158). Consideration before the full Senate is the next step after the bill was overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives.
We would not have reached this point without the hard work by advocates, FCNL staff, and partners. The Elie Wiesel Act reminds us that policy change is possible, but progress requires persistence over years. It is challenging to prevent a future crisis while our government jumps from conflict to conflict as global violence rises. Yet, this focus is an important shift toward saving lives and breaking cycles of violence.
Our work on the Elie Wiesel Act stems from our government’s failure to deal with the atrocities committed in Darfur in 2008. Policy recommendations on preventing future atrocities were developed by a bipartisan group co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen.
To advance these policy recommendations, FCNL convened a group of like-minded organizations. The Prevention and Protection Working Group — which I lead — focuses on the critical civilian capacities needed to bolster the government’s toolkit in preventing and mitigating atrocities.
FCNL was at the forefront in educating members of Congress at a time when very few were familiar with the concept of prevention. We urged the administration to create better institutions, expand prevention-related knowledge among U.S. civilian personnel, and increase funding.
In 2010, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution urging the improvement of prevention efforts. Together with our partners, we pressured the Obama administration to implement key recommendations. This included the creation of a White House-led interagency body known as the Atrocities Prevention Board (APB), the Complex Crises Fund (CCF), the State Department’s Bureau for Conflict and Stabilization Operations, and a host of atrocities prevention training programs.
However, subsequent events cast a shadow over our work. Congress did little. An outbreak of atrocities in Syria occurred just before the APB began to convene, and violence prevention was viewed increasingly as the legacy of one president alone.
Undeterred, we continued to advocate for atrocities prevention. In early 2015, there was a renewed effort to bring Congress back to the table, recognizing that it had to pass a law to maintain and strengthen these efforts. We re-emphasized the bipartisan nature of prevention and provided information on what the APB could achieve with continued support.
In November 2015, hundreds of advocates descended on Capitol Hill as part of FCNL’s Quaker Public Policy Institute to lobby their members of Congress to pass a law on atrocities prevention. In 2016, we convened a bipartisan committee of experts which produced the influential report, “A Necessary Good: U.S. Leadership on Preventing Mass Atrocities.”
Thanks to this pressure, bipartisan legislation was introduced and gained momentum in the Senate that year. Although the bill did not pass, it was an excellent educational tool that seeded the ground to reintroduce the Elie Wiesel Act in Congress in 2017.
Now, we are only a few steps away from its passage into law. The Elie Wiesel Act is the result of years of dedicated and persistent work by advocates like you, our partner organizations, and violence prevention experts.
