Select committee: International Development Committee
Recommendation 24
Third Report - From Srebrenica to a safer tomorrow: Preventing future mass atrocities around the world
Published 17 Oct 2022
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 ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
In addition to the OCSM’s processes of longer-term monitoring and analysis, the Government should introduce a system for tracking and responding to imminent or escalating mass atrocities. This system for ‘raising the alarm’ should: a) provide UK Missions with a simple tool for reporting and urgent warning to be used when officials perceive an imminent or rapidly escalating risk; b) include a clear communication protocol between senior responsible officials in London, the OCSM and the relevant Mission to fast-track ministerial decisions and policy responses. The process for responding should also have been agreed and rehearsed in advance; and c) draw on the resources and latest intelligence offered by the situation centre in the Cabinet Office if suspected atrocities are occurring. (Paragraph 82 Aid programming
From: International Development Committee, Third Report - From Srebrenica to a safer tomorrow: Preventing future mass atrocities around the world (HC 149), 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".