The ECR2P is Delighted to Announce a Formal Partnership and Collaboration with Protection Approaches

The European Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (ECR2P) and Protection Approaches are delighted to announce a Memorandum of Understanding to mark a period of formal partnership and collaboration. This commitment will see the ECR2P and Protection Approaches working towards a shared joint mission of strengthening European contributions to the prevention of mass atrocities.

Through this understanding, we will redouble our organisational commitments, as researchers and advocates, to bring the very best of European research to those who make and shape the decisions that can better protect communities across the world from identity-based mass violence and mass atrocities. It is a partnership rooted in the belief, shared by both our organizations, that a better understanding of mass violence and its prevention is one of the strongest tools with which to prevent future catastrophes.

At the 2005 United Nations World Summit, world leaders endorsed the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as a framework for preventing and responding to genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Both the ECR2P and Protection Approaches engage at the forefront of these theoretical and policy-led debates, in Europe and around the world.

The prediction and prevention of mass atrocities will only be achieved through collective and effective action on many fronts. The crucial acknowledgement by all UN member states in 2005 of their shared responsibility to protect populations from the most terrible crimes marked a moment in both the normative and moral evolution of global leadership. Protection Approaches exists to defend the rights of all from the threats of identity-based violence and mass atrocities, and the effective and responsible implementation of R2P provides a crucial means by which our mission can be reached.

Through this partnership our organisations will bring together those who study mass violence, atrocities and their prevention, and those who face the day-to-day difficulties of seeking to implement policy to prevent these crimes. Our shared endeavour will be to support UK, European and global duty bearers, through the provision of research, data, and evidence-based recommendations. Our organisations will work to develop and improve research on the principle of the responsibility to protect and on how best to protect people from identity-based mass violence; to build civil society and academic networks across Europe; and to bring evidence to decision makers to support European countries to become global leaders in preventing atrocities worldwide. This partnership will provide the opportunity for innovative forms of knowledge exchange and cross-sector learning for both our organisations and other stakeholders through dialogue, teaching, training, producing and disseminating research, and engaging with those who make and shape decisions.

To mark the beginning of this collaboration, our co-Director at the European Centre, Dr Cristina Stefan, will join the Board of Directors for Protection Approaches, and the Director of Research and Policy at Protection Approaches, Dr Kate Ferguson, will become a Visiting Fellow at the European Centre for the Responsibility to Protect.

This collaboration is at its heart born out of a shared commitment to research-based and evidence-led decision making, underpinned by a mutual organisational commitment to contribute to the shared responsibility towards the world’s most vulnerable.

Dr Cristina Stefan said “I am beyond delighted to announce that the European Centre for the Responsibility to Protect is entering into an innovative partnership with Protection Approaches. This collaboration will enable us to strengthen the links between researchers, advocates and policy-makers, and will accelerate the knowledge transfer of evidence-based, scholarly research to those who make and shape the decisions that can better protect communities across the world from mass atrocities. Together, we’ll be able to raise the standards in both research and policy on mass atrocity prevention and human protection.”

Dr Kate Ferguson said, ‘We are delighted to be signing this Memorandum of Understanding with the European Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. This marks the beginning of an innovative collaboration and new approach to bridging the academic and the advocacy worlds and we are excited to get started. The responsibility to protect people from identity-based violence and atrocity crimes is truly a shared one and requires joined up commitments from us all, whether in the classroom, as researchers, or as advocates. In working together, our organisations will forge new dialogues and networks. We will make change.”