The United Nations Early Warning Mechanism for the Prevention of Genocide and its Obstruction in the Case of Palestine

Aicha Elbasri

Researcher at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and former United Nations diplomat. She has held several media positions at the UN Department of Global Communications in New York, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Sudan, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), the United Nations-African Union Hybrid Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) for the Arab states. Her research interests include United Nations peacekeeping operations and African studies. She earned a PhD in French literature from Savoy University in France and in 2015 received a Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling for reporting on UN violations in Darfur.

This study addresses a major research gap concerning the exclusion of Palestine from the UN’s early warning mechanism for genocide prevention since its establishment in 2004. It examines the disruption of the mechanism and the failure of the UN Secretary-General and his Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide to relay to the Security Council experts’ warnings about the risk of genocide being committed by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza.

The study identifies five primary factors contributing to this failure: the mechanism’s lack of independence and its subordination to the Secretary-General’s authority; the absence of an independent expert committee to oversee the Special Adviser’s work; the vulnerability of UN Secretaries-General to pressure from Israel and its allies; the lack of UN accountability; and the failure of the Palestinian Authority and Arab states to include Palestine in the early warning mechanism, in contrast to Israel and its allies’ successful use of the mechanism to suppress critiques of Israeli policies under the guise of combating “the new anti-Semitism”. The study proposes recommendations to address these institutional flaws and reform the mechanism.

** This study was published in the 15th issue of AlMuntaqa, a peer-reviewed academic journal for the social sciences and humanities. You can read the full paper here.

Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies