Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide

Following the genocide in Rwanda, activists in the West resolved never to let such crimes happen again. And when evidence of mass atrocities began to filter out of Darfur a decade later, they acted. The movement they built to save Darfur brought together seasoned human-rights activists, celebrities, politicians, and thousands of ordinary citizens who had had never before been active in a movement to change the foreign policy of their governments.

In her book Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide (Palgrave Macmillan), human rights lawyer and former Open Society fellow Rebecca Hamilton takes an honest and unsentimental look at the movement for Darfur and its consequences.

At a recent book launch event, Hamilton and a panel of experts discussed the movement's considerable successes, as well as the missteps that diminished its effectiveness. They also asked if mass action can ever be effective in stopping crimes against humanity and assessed the legacy of Darfur for Sudan—and for all of Africa—in the wake of the January 2011 referendum, which will ultimately divide Sudan into two separate nations.

Listen above.