Perreault Magazine - 35 -
Continued on page 36
We cannot wait to start to look for, train and create a mechanism to send the right people to investigate atrocities - after they happen. All this must already be in place, so that when there is genocide or when war crimes happen, we can respond as soon as possible. We already have to intervene in very difficult circumstances – such crimes take place in the midst of conflict and crumbling infrastructures – so we cannot make it even more difficult to investigate these crimes by not being ready.
Nor will the people of the world settle for anything less. We may be working in an international system whose structures were conceived sixty years ago, but we are also living in a world where almost everyone has a mobile phone. The world is connected, and there is no pulling the plug. And since the early 1990s the international community has been promising the people of the world that perpetrators of mass atrocity crimes will not be permitted to get away with it.
But we are far from delivering on this promise. In order to do so, in addition to thinking like diplomats, lawyers and investigators we also have to think like entrepreneurs.
Justice Rapid Response (JRR) is a global facility providing highly specialized and specifically trained criminal justice professionals for rapid deployment to assist with investigations of mass atrocities. Operational since only 2009, JRR already has 76 participating states, and more than 30 participating organizations.
Bones - Mali © JRR