Introduction

In 1994 the genocide in Rwanda shook the world’s collective conscience. A mixture of international unwillingness and poor procedure meant that effective action was not taken to prevent the killings.

The next year, in what became the largest mass murder in Europe since World War II, United Nations forces in Srebrenica failed to protect those who had sought refuge in a so-called UN ‘safe zone’.

In 1999, fear of a veto in the Security Council prevented UN forces from intervening in atrocities in Kosovo. All of these failures revealed structural defects in the way the international community responds to mass atrocities.