Responding to Genocide: mobilising Political Will in Australia Deborah Mayersen Executive summary • Australia has demonstrated a strong commitment to genocide prevention rhetorically, but typically this has not translated into robust policy responses to genocide occurring in foreign countries • Australia supports the Responsibility to Protect (populations from genocide and mass atrocities) Principle, endorsed internationally at the 2005 World Summit. Despite this support, however, Australia’s policy response to the genocide in Darfur was weak and inadequate. • Australia’s responses to genocide can be strengthened through building domestic political will. • Robust Australian responses to genocide and mass atrocities can contribute to stronger international political will to respond to these crimes. • As a newly elected non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, Australia has a unique window of opportunity to exert a strong influence on international responses to genocide and mass atrocities. ‘Never again’, opined Prime Minister Julia Gillard at a 2012 Holocaust Commemoration service in Melbourne, ‘never, ever again’. Australia has demonstrated strong support for genocide prevention in the international community, where the issue has been increasingly discussed in recent years. In addition to our commitment to ‘prevent and to punish’ genocide as a signatory to the Genocide Convention, at the World Summit in 2005 Australia endorsed the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP or R2P) principle. The R2P principle is defined as a ‘new international security and human rights norm to address the international community’s failure to prevent and stop genocides, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Australia also has contributed a significant portion of the funding for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, currently trying leaders of the Khmer Rouge for genocide, and AusAID has funded research into genocide prevention. Nonetheless, this commitment to genocide prevention typically has not translated into robust policy responses to actual instances of genocide, or the imminent threat thereof.