How far has the US government moved toward institutions to implement "a culture of prevention" of genocide and atrocity, the aim of the multinational conference on atrocities prevention convened by the United States State Department on October 28-29, 1999? In a telephone interview with Harold Hongju Koh (former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor/Yale Law School) shortly before he left office, Mr. Koh reflected on the opportunities, achievments, and limits of attainment in the past 15 months.

The US has established an intelligence network within the US government and among several countries which participated in the October 1999 conference. More needs to be done with regard to coordination among and with the non-governmental human rights organizations. It was not possible to get an agreement among the participating countries for the US-proposed nine-point Declaration of Principles, in large part because many participating governments wanted such principles to formally endorse the treaty creating the International Criminal Court, which Pres. Clinton did not sign until December 31, 2000. (Ed. Note: The treaty provides that signers after that date would have to ratify it at the same time as signing it, i.e., to secure the consent of the US Senate, a process not now politically possible in the US.) International and local recognition of the need for accounting has also led toward the creation of mixed national- international courts for judging war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone and Cambodia which are in the process of being formed.

Disappointments include the failure of SFOR (representing France, the UK, and the US) in Bosnia to arrest President Radovan Karadzic and General Mladic for genocide and war crimes in Bosnia. Koh says the Rwanda was a disaster that stirred awareness of the need to focus more on Africa. What the US learned about the need for early intervention later benefited the people of Kosovo and East Timor in 1999.

Koh considers that we do not yet know what the new administration's policy on human rights will be. What leaders say before they get into office may differ from what they do. And there are different approaches and concerns within the administration; for example, one may compare Secretary-of-State Colin Powell's announced interest in Africa and Pres. Bush's statement that Africa is of modest strategic importance. Human rights can best be maintained by a consistent policy. There is bi-partisan support for human rights. The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor has had a good record and Koh believes that it would be best to retain the present structure.

Commentary: What Has Been Done; What Remains to Do
Members of the US State Department have made notable achievements in supporting the ICC and the UN, especially considering the depth of objections to both in Congress. Former President Clinton's signature on the International Criminal Court treaty is important both in garnering credibility for the US and for the ICC. Yet a state's signature is not a ratification; it is up to the President to bring it to the Senate to ratify and this may take some time, given the opposition of Pres. Bush and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms.

Harold Koh and others within the State Department should be recognized for their role in enabling the US to support international institutions. Credit for negotiating alterations in the ICC treaty which made it possible for the US to sign (despite previous Pentagon opposition) should be given to the former US State Department Ambassador for War Crimes, David Scheffer. Former US Ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, negotiated an agreement with the US Congress which recently authorized paying US unpaid back dues to the UN.

Yet the failure in most cases to prevent or punish genocide in the past decade is continued by the refusal of US and other allies (some say France especially) to make arrests of major indicted perpetrators in Bosnia. The Clinton administration also refused to sanction a congressional investigation of US inaction and actions to prevent intervention in Rwanda in 1994. There is also the US and European failure to articulate clear standards of judgment in cases of gross violation of human rights, such as in Chechnya, a case in which no one has advocated intervention.

Especially important are efforts to deter escalation of conflict and get local actors to suppress gross violations of human rights in situations such as the Great Lakes, West Africa, Indonesia, southeast Asia, and Israel/Palestine. It is hard (and probably premature) to make categorical judgments when we do not know what has or is being done behind the scenes, for effective and pro-active actions may be diplomatic, political and economic, without public announcement.

Many now acknowledge that the old division between national interests vs. values (or realpolitik vs. idealism) is archaic. We are threatened by catastrophes triggered in far-away places by hate-mongers (and unnatural devastation their policies wreak), by insurgents and by governments, by viruses (such as HIV) and by newly virulent diseases. None of these can be countered by conventional rankings of national security, interests of rich vs. poor countries, north vs. south, "we" and "they." It is no accident that most of the areas now viewed as impending "black holes" or failed states are areas in which we failed to deter or stop gross violations of human rights or intervened (as in Afghanistan) without anticipating certain malign consequences. Gross violations of human rights may be the "miner's canary" that signals impending danger; apprehending and deterring them may prevent collapse of structures housing millions.