Hambatan PBB dalam Merespon Mass Atrocity di Suriah pada Tahun 2011-2013

The Syrian conflict is one of the deadliest conflicts that occurred as a result of the Arab Spring. A large number of casualties in this conflict shows how sovereign state and international community had failed to fulfill their responsibility to protect civilians from mass atrocities. The purpose of this article is to examine what obstacles the United Nations had faced in its effort to protect the Syrian population. The framework that used to analyze this issue is the concept of Global Governance and the Responsibility to Protect. Using descriptive qualitative research methods, data will be collected from books, journal articles, official reports and media publications to explain four obstacles United Nations had faced. The first obstacle related to growing multipolarity that causes difficulty in reaching a consensus during the negotiations. The second obstacle related to UN Security Council permanent member dysfunctional behavior which often causes a deadlock in decision making. The third obstacle is the complexity of the conflict that occurred. The last one is the differences opinion among related organizations that relieves the international pressure to immediately end the mass atrocities.

Mass Atrocities and Their Prevention

Counting conservatively, data show about 100 million mass atrocity-related deaths since 1900. A distinct empirical phenomenon, mass atrocities are events of enormous scale, severity, and brutality, occur in wartime and in peacetime, are geographically widespread, occur with surprising frequency, under various systems of governance, and can be long-lasting in their effects on economic and human development, wellbeing, and wealth, more so when nonfatal physical injuries and mental trauma also are considered. As such, mass atrocities are a major economic concern. Given the multidisciplinary nature of the subject matter, the pertinent conceptual, theoretical, and empirical literatures are voluminous and widely dispersed, and have not been synthesized before from an economics point of view. We address two gaps: a “mass atrocities gap” in the economics literature and an “economics gap” in mass atrocities scholarship. Our goals are, first, to survey and synthesize for economists a broad sweep of literatures on which to base further work in this field and, second, for both economists and noneconomists to learn how economic inquiry contributes to understanding the causes and conduct of mass atrocities and, possibly, to their mitigation and prevention. In drawing on standard, behavioral, identity, social network, and complex systems economics, we find that the big puzzles of the “how” and “why” of mass atrocities, and mass participation therein, are being well addressed. While new research on such topics will be valuable, work should also progress to develop improved prevention approaches. (JEL D72, D74, K38, N40, Z13)

Collective Healing: Towards a Conceptual Framework

To understand what kind of collective healing practices might be most effective following mass atrocity, we need to comprehend better what counts as collective healing, and in what ways group healing processes differ from individual ones. We need clear and well-argued answers to these conceptual questions as a basis for deriving the criteria by which we might evaluate various practices in different contexts. Because means are valuable only in relation to ends, judging their effectiveness requires a definition of the ends in question and what is good about them. So, what counts as a good collective healing process? This conceptual paper proposes that the concept of healing requires that of being wounded, which in turn requires the idea that some agent performed dehumanizing actions. It identifies dehumanization as a serious form of harm, and characterizes the nature of healing processes based on this analysis. It then describes the group nature of mass atrocities. These four points enable us to separate different kinds of healing processes that are normally conflated and begin to provide a framework for evaluating diverse collective healing processes.

A Dance of Shadows and Fires: Conceptual and Practical Challenges of Intergenerational Healing after Mass Atrocity

The legacy of mass atrocity—including colonialism, slavery or specific manifestations such as apartheid—continue long after their demise. Applying a temporal intergenerational lens adds complications. We argue that mass atrocity creates for subsequent generations a deep psychological rupture akin to witnessing past atrocities. This creates a moral liability in the present. Healing is a process dependent on the authenticity (evident in discourse and action) with which we address contemporary problems. A further overriding task is to open social and political space for divergent voices. Acknowledgement of mass atrocity requires more than one-off events or institutional responses (the grand apology, the truth commission). Rather, acknowledgement has to become a lived social, cultural and political reality. Without this acknowledgement, healing, either collectively or individually, is stymied. Healing after mass atrocity is as much about political action (addressing inequalities and racism) as an act of re-imaging created through constant and contested re-writing.

Guest Editorial: Mass Atrocity and Collective Healing: New Possibilities for Regenerating Communities

This Special Issue brings together five articles from different disciplines. It aims to contribute to the emergent critical voices in research about collective trauma and collective healing by introducing novel perspectives and inviting further debates on the relevant issues evoked. For this reason, the Special Issue focuses on collective healing through a number of prisms. First, it delves into the notions of wounding and trauma, with a view to advance a well-argued theoretical framework for understanding collective healing. Second, it identifies underlying ethical pillars for collective healing, especially the principles of equality and well-being that affirm human dignity founded on our intrinsic non-instrumental value as persons. Third, it interrogates one of the deeply seated root causes of transatlantic slavery, and establishes a connection between capitalist expansion and systematic subjugation of human beings to brutal forces for the sake of materialistic production and wealth accumulation. Thus, this Special Issue attempts to survey historical dehumanisation in some of the mass atrocities, probe their continued legacies in contemporary societies in Africa, Europe, and the Americas, and highlight some of the political, psycho-social and grassroots approaches to collect healing in various contexts. In doing so, it further reflects on the conceptual, methodological and structural challenges involved when moving towards collective healing.

Negative Aesthetic Experiences of Prosecuting the Barely Alive

Theories of negative aesthetics claim that some aesthetic qualities like disgust, ugliness, and repulsiveness are instrumentally valuable, and can be justified as a necessary means to producing what might be considered an ultimately positive aesthetic experience. In an international criminal trial, the presentation of “ugly” visual and oral evidence may be justified in service of the aims of the trial. But when the “barely alive” are prosecuted, however, a justification for a negative aesthetic experience may not exist. In this paper, I argue that due to their vulnerability and the need to protect their dignity, individuals who have been accused of mass atrocity crimes but who are nearing the end of their lives should generally not be subjected to public trial and punishment. The negative aesthetic experiences generated by displaying someone close to death in that setting cannot be justified by positive aesthetic or moral experiences.

The Road Not Taken: Failure to Protect from Atrocity Crimes in Myanmar

In 2005, more than 150 heads of State and government pledged that the world must never witness another Rwanda. They accepted the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) both their own populations, and those of other States from atrocity crimes. Yet, in late August 2017, thousands of Rohingya had to flee from the alleged genocide taking place in their home, northern Rakhine in Myanmar. The international community, equipped with a toolbox developed and refined over the past 12 years, does nothing more than politely asking Myanmar to stop. This begs the question: to what extent can the Responsibility to Protect doctrine be used to save the Rohingya from atrocities committed against them? This article explores the potential application of the R2P in the context of Myanmar by exploring the root causes of the alleged genocide, the legal status of the R2P and various options open to the international community to protect the Rohingya. The case is made that applying the R2P – in its current shape and form – would be in the best interest of the Rohingya. After all, the international community cannot stand by in the wake of another mass atrocity.

Obama and the use of force: a discursive institutionalist analysis of Libya and Syria

What factors explain variation in decisions to use force in American foreign policy? Consider the Obama administration’s decision to intervene in Libya. Upon assuming office, Obama outlined a foreign policy marked by a self-professed doctrine, ‘don’t do stupid shit’. In short, Obama sought to avoid the unnecessary use of military force, but when the threat of mass atrocity emerged, despite strong protests from senior advisers, he became drawn into the 2011 Libya intervention. By contrast, following chemical weapon attacks in Syria in 2013, Obama reneged on upholding his so-called ‘red-line’, pursuing diplomatic measures even though support for a military response was strong. But what explains this variation? Rationalist perspectives across the board have tended to overrate interpretive efficiency. Yet, such assumptions obscure the capacity for interests to be interpreted in different ways. To redress this issue, I build on discursive institutionalist insights, developing a model to show how principled and cognitive ideas act as weapons in institutional debates, serving to repress or displace information. To show how agents come to rely on principled or cognitive ideas, I develop a three-part model offering two mechanisms – cognitive repression and normative displacement – by which agents displace and repress certain types of information, depending on the ‘form’ in which that information is presented. This enables a more comprehensive understanding of how different interpretations lead to policy variation at critical moments of decision.