BOGOTA, COLOMBIA, October 29, 2013 – AIPR’s Director for Latin America, Eugenia Carbone, and Fabian Oddone, Chief of Section, Foriegn Policy, Embassy of Argentina in Colombia, participated in the Augusto Ramirez Ocampo Course in International Humanitarian Law at the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The course took place on October 19, 2013 and covered international humanitarian law in the Colombian context, with a special focus on human rights in Colombia. The course sought to bolster implementation of international humanitarian law through concrete measures supported by technical expertise.
Carbone and Oddone participated in a special session dedicated to genocide and mass atrocity prevention. Both Oddone and Carbone highlighted the importance of understanding genocide as a systematic process. According to Carbone, genocide involves “meticulous planning.” Effective prevention, she added, “requires strong political decisions and the implementation of cooperative and educational tools.”
In their remarks, Carbone and Oddone mentioned basic conceptual approaches to the prevention of genocide and highlighted the development and growth of the Latin American Network for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention. They also emphasized the importance of the technical and educational cooperation among the States of the region, as well as implementing inter-institutional work between national agencies with direct responsibilities related to human rights, international humanitarian law and genocide prevention strategies.
The course, named the after former Colombian foreign minister and human rights champion Augusto Ramirez Ocampo, was organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross and Colombia’s National System of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law.