Select committee: International Development Committee
Conclusion 15
Third Report - From Srebrenica to a safer tomorrow: Preventing future mass atrocities around the world
Published 17 Oct 2022
Paragraph 68
Addressed to Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
International Development Committee Promoting dialogue and preventing atrocities: the UK government approach All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
UK Missions overseas are not getting the support that they need on atrocity prevention. Current training and support appear to attach insufficient weight to prevention, which risks leaving staff without the information that they need to recognise and act on the warning signs of atrocities. Although some Missions acknowledged the value of the training, Missions in more than 90% of countries and territories do not appear to have recently accessed it. Some of the Missions that have apparently not accessed the training are based in countries where the FCDO believes that human rights violations and abuses are ongoing. Such critical training cannot be left to individual discretion. That point is especially pertinent, because the Government plans to give greater power to Heads of Missions.
From: International Development Committee, Third Report - From Srebrenica to a safer tomorrow: Preventing future mass atrocities around the world (HC 149), paragraph 68, 17 October 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 19 January 2023 (deadline 17 December 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees with many of the Committee's recommendations on atrocity prevention but says it "cannot commit to developing a written strategy at this time".
- It agrees that atrocity prevention is separate from conflict prevention, and says the Mass Atrocity Prevention Hub in the FCDO's Office for Conflict, Stabilisation and Mediation has been established with "central policy ownership" of the approach.
- On the Committee's call for a cross-departmental strategy, it disagrees, stating that it "cannot commit to developing a written strategy at this time" while taking a whole-of-government approach.
- On reporting, it partially agrees: "From 2023" it will expand the existing atrocity prevention section of the annual Human Rights and Democracy Report.
- On resources, it partially agrees but says that, "given fiscal constraints", it cannot guarantee additional resource until budgets are confirmed, with updates "in due course".