Description
This paper considers whether states should prioritize preventing or reacting to mass atrocities. Should states focus on preventing the outbreak of atrocities in one at-risk location or should they instead react to atrocities that are already being perpetrated elsewhere? We defend strongly the case for prevention ideally: it is typically cheaper, less risky, less controversial, and thus less morally fraught than reactive measures, especially coercive reactive measures such as economic sanctions or military interventions that are commonly called for to end atrocities. And yet, prioritizing prevention over reaction could appear callous. It could leave those who are currently enduring atrocities to suffer their fate. The so-called ‘Rule of Rescue’ is a principle commonly advanced to defend prioritizing the assistance of those in immediate peril, even when this may be a suboptimal means of saving lives. We reject three versions of the ‘Rule of Rescue’, arguing that prevention in one place ought ideally to be favored over less effective reaction elsewhere, despite the urgent claims of the latter. We then argue, that nonideally there can be three reasons to pursue the suboptimal option of reacting to the perpetration of atrocities: because prevention can often be politically fraught and practically difficult too; because political leaders may be motivated and/or receive electoral backing for reaction to atrocities when there is no such support for directing resources toward prevention; and because perceived callousness in the face of atrocities can undermine international normative support for human protection. But we conclude by reiterating that preventive efforts should generally be favoured.
