In May 2016, President Obama issued Executive Order 13729: A Comprehensive Approach to Atrocity Prevention and Response, which states, “preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States.” Building on this idea, the U.S. Government has just released its first-ever Strategy to Anticipate, Prevent, and Respond to Atrocities.

The implementation of the Strategy is to be coordinated by the White House’s Atrocity Prevention Task Force, emphasizing interagency cooperation and taking a whole-of-government approach in preventing and responding to atrocities. Ultimately, the Strategy prioritizes three main goals, and outlines the steps needed in order to reach each objective:

• Goal 1: Atrocity Prevention, Response, and Recovery — Pursue Early Action and Locally Driven Solutions in Priority Countries
• Goal 2: Partnerships — Promote International Cooperation, Civil Society Engagement, and Strategic Public Messaging
• Goal 3: Management — Enable an Effective, Integrated U.S. Government Prevention Architecture

More resources related to mass atrocities and atrocity prevention can be found the Homeland Security Digital Library (HSDL).