September 24, 2015; Newsweek
Is it possible to accurately predict and prevent state-sponsored mass killings? The United States Holocaust Museum believes so and has initiated The Early Warning Project under its own Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide and the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College. To predict atrocities at the earliest possible moment, the project will combine statistical analysis with expert opinions to sense the danger in enough time to prevent genocide. The project fits into one of the museum’s three mandates, namely to “alert the national conscience … to insure that such a totally inhuman assault as the Holocaust – or any partial version thereof – never recurs.”
The Early Warning Project describes its goals as follows:
- to help set the policy agenda on situations requiring early action;
- to provide concerned individuals and organizations with powerful and reliable analytic assessments of countries and populations most at risk;
- to generate pressure for early and effective response by mobilizing the larger atrocities prevention community, journalis