About

Genocide Prevention Advisory Network (GPANet) background:

GPANet was founded in the late 1990s as a combined initiative of a number of academics. In 1999, most of the original group members (i.e. Yehuda Bauer, Barbara Harff, Roy Gutman, Ted Gurr, David, Scheffer, James Smith, and Helen Fein) formed the academic group responsible for the content of the First Stockholm Forum of 2000, initiated by then Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson, on Holocaust Education, attended by a large number of governments. The same group was subsequently responsible for the content of the Inter- governmental Stockholm Forum in 2004 on Genocide Prevention.

The group’s purposes are manifold: a) research and investigation into genocidal events and other mass atrocities – risk assessments, possibilities of early warning, and the like; b) investigation into non-military options of preventing genocidal events and other mass atrocities; c) investigation into options of non-military steps to stop or at least alleviate ongoing events of that nature; d) provision of advice to UN bodies (mainly the UN Special Adviser on Genocide Prevention, and now also the Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect) and interested governments, when such advice is sought; e) examining the possibilities of international interventions of different kinds.

GPANet has held annual meetings since the early 2000’s with the support of the government of Switzerland. In 2010, the meeting was held at George Mason University, USA. In 2012, the Dutch government hosted the annual meeting in The Hague, inviting the Dutch foreign minister and officials from the Ministries in town and other European governments. In 2013, the Swedish and Swiss governments, in collaboration with the Folke Bernadotte Academy, hosted our annual meeting in Stockholm. State level participation included representatives from seven governments – Argentina, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States – as well as the UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and on the Responsibility to Protect. In 2015, the Swiss government hosted our meeting in Geneva, and with the support of the Swiss Permanent Mission to the UN, GPANet held a side-event meeting at the Palais des Nations to share its recommendations to representatives from more than 23 Missions. In 2017, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities hosted our meeting in Jerusalem, with the representatives from nine governments participating or observing – Belgium, Germany, Norway, the Philippines, Rwanda, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United States.

Members of GPANet (in alphabetical order by last time):

  1. Prof. Yair Auron – Professor (Emeritus) of Genocide and Contemporary Judaism, the OpenUniversity of Israel
  2. Dr. Andrea Bartoli – President of Sant’Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue
  3. Prof. Yehuda Bauer – Professor of Holocaust Studies (Emeritus) at Hebrew University; Hon. Chairman of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance; Member of the Israeli Academy of Science
  4. Prof. James Finkel – Co-Founder of the Atrocity Prevention Study Group; Non-Resident Fellow at the Henry Stimson Center; Visiting Scholar at the George Mason University Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution; Courtesy Professor of Practice at The University of Oregon
  5. Mr. Roy Gutman – Pulitzer Prize journalist and author, reporter of the McClatchy Newspaper Chain, Jennings Randolph Fellow at the US Institute of Peace
  6. Prof. Barbara Harff – Professor of Political Science (Emerita) at the US Naval Academy, Annapolis; Former Senior Consultant to the US Government’s Political Instability Task Force
  7. Dr. Birger Heldt – Associate Professor
  8. Prof. Mukesh Kapila – Professor of Global Health and Humanitarian Affairs at theUniversity of Manchester
  9. Prof. Jennifer Leaning – FXB Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights (Public Health faculty) and Associate Professor of Medicine (Medical faculty) at Harvard University and Director of the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University.
  10. Dr. Eyal Mayroz – Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney, Australia; and Knowledge Management Coordinator of the Genocide Prevention Advisory Network (GPANet)
  11. Dr. Assumpta Mugiraneza – Co-Founder and Director of the Iriba Centre in Kigali.
  12. Amb. Liberata Mulamula – Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the United Republic of Tanzania.
  13. Dr. Tetsushi Ogata – Visiting Assistant Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Soka University of America; Convener of GPANet
  1. Prof. Eric Reeves – Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights
  2. Prof. David J. Scheffer – Professor of International Law and Director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University
  3. Dr. James Smith – Director of AEGIS – Society for the Prevention of Genocide, UK
  4. Prof. Ekkehard Strauss – Professor of the Berlin School of Economics and Law
  5. Prof. James Waller – Cohen Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College, New Hampshire
  6. Prof. Jürgen Zimmerer – Professor of Global History at University of Hamburg; Founding President of the International Network of Genocide Scholars; Founding Director of the Sheffield Centre for the Study of Genocide and Mass Violence