To aid in teaching about these difficult topics, Woven Teaching has produced and collected a number of resources about mass atrocity and genocide prevention.

As defined by the UN Genocide Convention of 1948, genocide includes specific harmful acts done with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” One of the most significant accomplishments of this convention is that it advocates for legal prevention and punishment of genocide in both war and peace times.

 

Teaching Materials

Primary Source Documents

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Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948

Following the atrocities of World War II, the international community vowed to prevent such human rights abuses from occurring in the future.  To do so, it created the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the United Nations’ first human rights treaty.  It establishes genocide as an international crime and was adopted by the United Nations on December 9, 1948.

As defined by the Convention, genocide includes specific harmful acts done with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”  One of the most significant accomplishments of this convention is that it advocates for legal prevention and punishment of genocide in both war and peace times. Read document >

Additional Resources

The Early Warning Project
The Early Warning Project is a program of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at USHMM. It assesses the risk of genocide and mass atrocity in countries around the world.

Fundamentals of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention
Author Scott Straus explains the major concepts, theories, and practices in the field of atrocity prevention. The entire book is available for free online in PDF form. 

The Genocide Education Project
The Genocide Education Project (GenEd) seeks to assist educators in teaching about human rights and genocide, particularly the Armenian Genocide, by developing and distributing instructional materials, providing access to teaching resources, and organizing educational workshops.

IWitness
A project of the USC Shoah Foundation, IWitness allows educators to bring video testimony into the classroom. IWitness Testimony is available for the Holocaust, the genocide in Rwanda and Guatemala, and more.

United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect
The United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect supports two Special Advisers who work together to advance national and international efforts to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM)
USHMM is the United States’ official memorial to the Holocaust. Its website hosts a variety of useful materials for teaching about the Holocaust and other genocides.