home > by publication type > academic modules > Academic Module: Darfur and Beyond: What Is Needed to Prevent Mass Atrocities
Email
September 2007
| Author: | Lee Feinstein |
|---|
This module features teaching notes by former CFR senior fellow Lee Feinstein, the author of Darfur and Beyond, along with other resources to supplement the text. In the report, Feinstein argues that the new UN secretary-general should take the General Assembly's endorsement of responsibility to protect as a mandate and outlines steps the United States and others must follow to bolster UN action.
What is a CFR Academic Module?
Academic Modules—featuring teaching notes by the authors of CFR publications—are designed to assist educators in creating or supplementing a course syllabus. The modules are customized packages built around a primary CFR text, such as a book or report, and include teaching notes; additional readings; video, audio, and transcripts of CFR meetings; Foreign Affairs articles; and other online resources. Use of these modules is free of charge. They may be used in part or in their entirety.
January 2007
Council Special Report No. 22
This report argues that the new UN secretary-general should take the General Assembly's endorsement of responsibility to protect as a mandate and as a mission statement. And the United States and others must take steps to bolster UN action and be available when the UN is not.
Graphics and multimedia explainers on the foreign policy, national security, and international financial issues of the day.
April 25, 2007
CFR.org's Emmy Award-winning multimedia exploration of the crisis in Darfur and its policy implications.
Succinct introductions to current political and economic issues.
June 18, 2007
While attention is focused on deploying UN peacekeepers to Darfur, most experts say a negotiated peace agreement remains the only way to settle the crisis.
January 2, 2007
The conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region increasingly threatens two neighboring countries—Chad and the Central African Republic. Here is a look at the major actors and how each country’s government has addressed—or exacerbated—the crisis.
May 4, 2006
Whatever the outcome of the current round of peace negotiations between Sudan's government and rebel groups, the crisis in Darfur seems likely to drag on. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council is planning a transition from AU peacekeepers to an expanded, UN-led force.
Updated: April 2, 2008
Despite its recent willingness to combat terrorism, Sudan is still considered a state sponsor because of its ties to Hamas, the Iraqi insurgency, and violence in Darfur.
September 2007
From Mugabe’s Zimbabwe to conflict in the Horn, Africa has moved off the back burner of U.S. foreign policy. To address the growing importance of this region, the Council on Foreign Relations and Foreign Affairs, the Council’s flagship magazine, present Beyond Humanitarianism, a citizen’s guide to deconstructing the complex issues and conflicts on the African continent and clarifying what’s at stake for the United States in Africa’s future.
September 2004
Council Special Report No. 5
This Council Special Report decries the tragically slow global response to the unrest in Sudan’s Darfur region, stating that it shows that the international community still lacks the capacity to deal effectively with humanitarian crises. Looking at Darfur in the context of lessons learned from Rwanda, the report recommends ways to end the Darfur crisis and avoid future ones.
November/December 2002
Summary
Throughout the humanitarian crises of the 1990s, the international community failed to come up with rules on how and when to intervene, and under whose authority. Despite the new focus on terrorism, these debates will not go away. The issue must be reframed as an argument not about the "right to intervene" but about the "reponsibility to protect" that all sovereign states owe to their citizens.
June 1, 2006
David Rieff argues that Darfur demands a consensus from the international community on the topic of military intervention. David Rieff believes that humanitarian intervention in Darfur carries greater risks and costs than "human rightists" are willing to recognize.
November 7, 2005
In Slate magazine in 2005, Christopher Hitchens considers what "realism" has wrought in Darfur.
September 10, 2004
Sudan, the largest nation in Africa, had been mostly mired in civil war since it won independence from Britain, in 1956. The central conflict, between Muslim government forces in the North and rebels in the South, began in 1955, abated in 1972, and resumed in 1983...
June 5, 2007
Sudan’s U.S. ambassador says Western states need to give the National Unity Government space to solve the Darfur crisis.
February 20, 2007
U.S. Special Envoy Andrew Natsios says there is a risk of new large-scale bloodletting in Darfur unless peace talks intensify and peacekeepers are deployed.
October 26, 2006
Princeton N. Lyman says that despite calls for military intervention in Darfur, he does not believe that such an approach would be practical. He hopes the U.S. special envoy to Darfur will be able to get the parties back to the negotiating table.
October 10, 2006
Roberta Cohen of the Brookings Institution discusses the expanded African Union peacekeeping force in Sudan's Darfur region. She says the AU force, besides being undermanned and underfunded, is seriously limited by the actions of the Sudanese government.
February 24, 2006
Millions of Sudanese continue to live in fear of violence because of the unsettled conflict in western Darfur. Also, a one-year-old peace deal ending a long civil war between Sudan’s mainly Muslim north and the animist and Christian south has still not produced a national unity government as planned. The International Crisis Group’s John Prendergast tells cfr.org international pressure is needed for real change in Sudan.
August 4, 2006
At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention
Author: David Rieff
June 2005
American Interests and UN Reform
Author: United States Institute for Peace
September 1999
Intervention: The Use of American Military Force in the Post Cold-War World
Author: Richard N. Haass
April 22, 1999
Doctrine of the International Community (Speech)
Author: Tony Blair
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P): A Primer
Author: International Crisis Group
Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
March 2007
Amnesty International details how the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan has spread to eastern Chad. Amnesty claims that several thousand people have been killed and that thousands of women and girls have been raped.
December 2006
In this report Amnesty International says that thousands of women have been raped in Sudan and Chad since the armed conflict began in Darfur in 2003. There have certainly been thousands. The names of 250 women who had been raped, and harrowing information about their cases, were recorded by Amnesty International on a 10-day visit to just three refugee camps in Chad in 2004. Recent months have seen a dramatic increase in the numbers of rapes as Darfur has been plunged into new fighting. In just one camp in Darfur, Kalma camp, the International Rescue Committee reported that rapes of women rose from under four to 200 a month during five weeks in July and August 2006. Overall, despite the presence of an African Union peacekeeping force (African Union Mission in Sudan, AMIS) and international awareness of what is happening in Darfur, in 2006 rapes and other violence against women and girls have increased, not diminished.
December 2006
In this report the US Institute for Peace (USIP) details proceedings at its Sudan Peace Forum in December 2006 in which Dr Chester Crocker and Dr Francis Deng co-chaired a discussion of overlapping crises in Darfur, Chad and the Central African Republic. The meeting was prompted by recent comments of the United Nations Under Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland, who warned that the crises in Darfur, Chad, and CAR are "intimately linked" and could lead to a "dangerous regional crisis."
March 2006
It would seem that, so far, the National Unity government has not yet provided the hoped-for changes to Sudan’s political life or its people.
February 21, 2006
This Human Rights Watch report argues that U.N. and A.U. forces must now turn their attention to protecting civilians from raids.
Arthur C. Helton Memorial Lecture: Holding World Leaders Accountable to Reducing Global Poverty and Protecting Civilians
Related Project: Arthur C. Helton Memorial Lecture
| Speaker: | Jan Egeland, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General, United Nations; Former Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, United Nations |
|---|---|
| Presider: | Gillian M. Sorensen, National Advocate, United Nations Foundation; Former Assistant Secretary-General, United Nations |
5:30 – 6:00 p.m. Reception
6:00 – 7:00 p.m. Meeting
7:00 – 8:00 p.m. Cocktail Reception
Transcript: Arthur C. Helton Memorial Lecture: Holding World Leaders Accountable to Reducing Global Poverty and Protecting Civilians [Rush Transcript; Federal News Service]
Audio: Arthur C. Helton Memorial Lecture: Holding World Leaders Accountable to Reducing Global Poverty and Protecting Civilians (Audio)
Video: Arthur C. Helton Memorial Lecture: Holding World Leaders Accountable to Reducing Global Poverty and Protecting Civilians (Video)
This meeting is on the record.
Key Challenges in Today's U.N. Peacekeeping Operations
| Speaker: | Jean-Marie Guéhenno, Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations |
|---|
Responding to burgeoning crises that are increasingly evolving, complex and global, while simultaneously experiencing diminished support and manpower from the international community, the United Nations faces immense challenges to its worldwide peacekeeping operations. Complicating this further is the call for broad structural reform. Join Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Marie Guéhenno as he details his current challenges - and strategies for successfully confronting them - with presider Lee Feinstein, the Council's Deputy Director of Studies, and author of a forthcoming Council Special Report on U.N. Reform.
8:00 - 8:30 a.m. Breakfast Reception
8:30 - 9:30 a.m. Meeting
Transcript: Key Challenges in Today’s UN Peacekeeping Operations [Rush Transcript; Federal News Service, Inc.]
Audio: Key Challenges in Today's U.N. Peacekeeping Operations (audio)
This meeting is on the record.
Arthur C. Helton Memorial Lecture on Divided Nations: The Dilemmas of International Protection for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons
Related Project: Arthur C. Helton Memorial Lecture
| Speakers: | Roberta Cohen, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, The Brookings Institution; Co-Director, The Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement; and Principal Adviser to the Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons |
|---|---|
| Francis M. Deng, Director of the Center for Displacement Studies; Research Professor of International Law, Politics and Society, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University; Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Kluge Center of the Library of Congress; and Wilhelm Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology | |
| Presider: | Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations |
5:30 - 6:00 p.m. Reception
6:00 - 7:00 p.m. Meeting
7:00 - 8:00 p.m. Cocktail Reception
Transcript: Divided Nations: The Dilemmas of International Protection for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons [Rush Transcript, Federal News Service, Inc.]
Audio: Arthur C. Helton Memorial Lecture on Divided Nations: The Dilemmas of International Protection for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (audio)
Video: Arthur C. Helton Memorial Lecture on Divided Nations: The Dilemmas of International Protection for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (video)
This meeting is on the record.
Surviving Sudan
| Introductory Speaker: | Vivian Schiller, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Discovery Times Channel |
|---|---|
| Presider: | Princeton N. Lyman, Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow, Africa Policy Studies, Council on Foreign Relations |
| Speakers: | John Prendergast, Special Advisor to the President, International Crisis Group |
| Christiane Amanpour, Chief International Correspondent, CNN |
In this startling new documentary, award-winning journalist and filmmaker Sorious Samura travels with a Sudanese family as they flee the violence in Darfur and seek shelter at a refugee camp in Chad.
**This event is co-sponsored with the Discovery Times Channel
**Seating is limited.
Transcript: Surviving Sudan
Audio: Surviving Sudan (audio)
Inaugural Arthur C. Helton Memorial Lecture: A Conversation with Sadako Ogata
Related Project: Arthur C. Helton Memorial Lecture
| Introductory Speaker: | Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations |
|---|---|
| Presider: | Princeton N. Lyman, Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow, Africa Policy Studies, Council on Foreign Relations |
| Speaker: | Sadako Ogata, President, Japan International Cooperation Agency, Former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees |
**This meeting is on the record.
**Members are welcome to bring a guest to this event.
Transcript: Arthur C. Helton Memorial Lecture: A Conversation with Sadako Ogata
Audio: Inaugural Arthur C. Helton Memorial Lecture: A Conversation with Sadako Ogata (Audio)
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
The report of this bipartisan Task Force of distinguished leaders and experts represents a strong consensus on the importance of repairing America's immigration policy. It makes the case that maintaining America's political and economic leadership depends on attracting talented and hard-working immigrants, and on securing the country's borders in a smart, effective, and humane way.
This report finds that nuclear weapons will remain a fundamental element of U.S. national security in the near term, and makes recommendations on how to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. deterrent nuclear force, prevent nuclear terrorism, and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
About Independent Task Forces at CFR
Complete list of Task Force reports
Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report
provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.
For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
To request permission to reprint or reuse CFR material, please fill out this permissions request form (PDF), referring to the instructions on page 1.
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.