The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS), based at Concordia since 1986, is hosting a conference called "The Promise of Media in Halting Mass Atrocities: A Conference to Mark the 10th Anniversary of the Responsibility to Protect."
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a Canadian-sponsored initiative that seeks to prevent mass atrocity crimes. R2P stipulates:
A. State sovereignty implies responsibility, and the primary responsibility for the protection of its people lies within the state itself.
B. Where a population is suffering serious harm, as a result of internal war, insurgency, repression or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert it, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect.
When: Thursday, October 20 and Friday, October 21
Where: Club Mount Stephen, 1440 Drummond St., Montreal
The conference will address the fundamental need to sustain the relevance of R2P at the international level, so that mass atrocity crimes are prevented. In the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan sought new ways to protect civilians from genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing.
The conference will discuss how the expanding, more inclusionary media landscape, with the emergence of social media as a key platform for reporting on humanitarian crises, has changed the way in which the international community responds to genocide. This focus is particularly important given the profound transformations that are presently reshaping the media landscape - from shrinking budgets to dwindling foreign bureaus - as well as the rapid evolution in new technologies that are making mass atrocities in seemingly distant countries suddenly immediate and ever harder to ignore. The conference will engage with these issues through keynote addresses, panels, and discussions featuring journalists, academic experts, and senior politicians, chosen for their ability to offer new insights and ideas.
Related link:
• MIGS conference site
