Developing early warning systems for human rights violations

Early warning concerns include: lack of an adequate legislative basis for defining and criminalizing all forms of racial discrimination; inadequate implementation of enforcement mechanisms, including lack of recourse procedures; presence of a pattern of escalating racial hatred and violence, or racist propaganda or appeals to racial intolerance by persons, groups or organizations, notably by elected or other officials; significant pattern of racial discrimination evidenced in social and economic indicators; significant flows of refugees or displaced persons resulting from a pattern of racial discrimination or encroachment on the lands of minority communities.

Early warning will not ensure successful preventive action unless there is a fundamental change of attitude by governments and international organizations. Third parties should not simply wait for unambiguous disasters and mass slaughter before they take preventive action. Rather, a systematic and practical early warning system should be combined with consistently updated contingency plans for preventive action that provide leaders with a repertoire of responses. This would be a radical departure from the present system, where when a trigger event sets off an explosion of violence, it is usually too difficult, too costly, and too late for a rapid and effective response. This early warning system would be a crucial component of the international preventive framework envisioned by the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict.

The end of the Cold War has diminished neither the importance nor the challenge of obtaining early warning. Indeed the intelligence community today monitors and analyzes an increasing number of factors, in addition to traditional indicators of potential conflict, such as environmental degradation, economic conditions, and population trends. The increased complexity of gathering, sorting, and analyzing data for early warning results from the pressing need to respond quickly, efficiently, and effectively to rapidly changing global events. In an era of increasing demands on limited resources, the task is all more difficult.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination recommends the the development of early warning measures concerning existing structural problems in order to prevent them escalating into conflicts. These could also include confidence-building measures to identify and support structures to strengthen racial tolerance in order to prevent a relapse into conflict.