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Mass Atrocities and International Law
The New Lines Institute’s Mass Atrocities and International Law portfolio advances evidence-based policy solutions to prevent and respond to mass violence while promoting accountability and the rule of law. The portfolio evaluates the evolving role of international law in addressing atrocity crimes, conducts rigorous monitoring and documentation of ongoing genocide and mass atrocities, and develops practical policy measures for prevention and response.
The Mass Atrocities and International Law portfolio is headed by Susanna Kelley.
Mass Atrocities and International Law Initiatives
Multilateral Action Model on Reparations
Developing an effective system for reparation and compensation for Ukraine and Ukrainians for damage caused by the Russian Federation.
Russian Breaches of Genocide Convention in Ukraine
These reports are the first to address one of the more contentious and consequential questions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: whether the war is genocidal in character. With fighting still ongoing, modern tools have made it vital that this question be examined and its truth made known.
Global Rohingya Initiative
The Rohingya people have been persecuted by their own country and sought uneasy refuge in neighboring countries for decades. Successive governments in Myanmar (also known as Burma) have violated the Rohingya’s rights to identity, nationality, security, and other fundamental human rights.
The Rohingya were formally stripped of their nationality by the Burmese authorities with the passage of the race-based 1982 citizenship law. The Burmese military, which again seized power from a nominally civilian government in a February 2021 coup, has a long history of committing atrocities against the Rohingya people while more broadly fomenting anti-Muslim sentiment in Myanmar. The military’s 2017 “clearance operations” against Rohingya communities in northern Rakhine State – carried out under the color of authority from the democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi – resulted in more than 700,000 men, women, and children seeking refuge to neighboring Bangladesh, joining approximately 300,000 Rohingya refugees who had fled during previous rounds of violence.
While the international community broadly condemned the genocide, crimes against humanity, and other violations committed against the Rohingya, and has provided substantial humanitarian assistance for Rohingya refugees, the global political response to this crisis has never been adequate to its scale and scope.
The 2021 coup, and subsequent national crisis in Myanmar, has dimmed the prospects for voluntary, safe, and durable returns of Rohingya refugees in the near term, but it has also reshuffled the political deck in ways that created new opportunities for and challenges to longer-term solutions. The opposition National Unity Government has appointed a Rohingya deputy minister and has engaged in negotiations with Rohingya representatives regarding a potential repeal of the 1982 citizenship law and restoration of citizenship rights. The Rohingya people’s historic homelands in Rakhine state are now firmly under the control of the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed organization whose armed conflict with the Burma Army predates the 2021 coup.
Likewise, the fluid political situation in Bangladesh has created new challenges. Since the fall of Sheikh Hasina in 2024, the interim Bangladeshi government has struggled to manage the Rohingya issue in a context of escalating conflict in Burma and a complicated domestic political environment. While Bangladeshi authorities have taken some steps to crack down on violent extremist groups that terrorized the refugee camps, there are long-running rumors of cooperation between these groups and Bangladeshi military and intelligence communities. As the already huge refugee camps continue to swell with new arrivals, the local host communities in Cox’s Bazar have become increasingly resentful of the burden they bear with no end in sight. This burden continues to grow as the international community has consistently reduced its support to the camps over the past five years – a trend that has accelerated under the widespread aid cuts of the United States’ Trump administration.
It is unsurprising that in this complex and dynamic context, the Rohingya community has long struggled with issues of representation and leadership. Rohingya women are often only represented as victims of Burma Army abuse and lack meaningful representation in community, national (i.e. Burmese), regional, and international discussions about their own future. This is especially true of camp-based and internally displaced Rohingya women.
Efforts to resolve the multi-dimensional Rohingya crisis have continually fallen short due to the failure of the international community to address the root causes of the crisis or meaningfully engage Rohingya representatives in these efforts. In 2023, New Lines Institute convened the Global Rohingya Initiative (GRI) to bring together key stakeholders, with a focus on empowering representatives of the Rohingya community to address this crisis in a more holistic and effective way. The GRI supports the emergence of a new generation of Rohingya leaders who are ready and able to engage constructively with both the international community and emerging post-coup Burmese political configurations. The Initiative is centered on the priorities and voices of the Rohingya and works across the geographic regions where they are located to establish an international platform to explore and encourage short-, mid-, and long-term solutions.
Uyghur Scholars Working Group
In an effort to deal with the international crisis stemming from China’s industrial-scale repression of its Uyghur and other Turkic Muslim minorities, the New Lines Institute established the Uyghur Scholars Working Group (USWG) in 2020.
The USWG brings together experts to enhance situational awareness on the conditions that millions of ethnic Turkic Muslims face in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The group engages in research and analysis on how the U.S. government and its allies and partners can best deal with Beijing’s efforts to erase Uyghur identity and culture.
The USWG also publishes the Uyghur Series, an occasional series presenting research, analysis, and policy recommendations on the events unfolding in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People’s Republic of China. Additionally, we host occasional events and workshops.
Sign up for our newsletter to receive our Uyghur-related content, including the latest research and analysis, and information on public events and webinars.
Rebuilding Ukraine Project
As the war in Ukraine has raged on, ceasefire talks have come and gone, and the world’s attention has often been fixed on the military frontlines, geopolitical maneuvering, and large-scale reconstruction of cities and infrastructure. Yet beyond these high-profile dimensions lies another story: one of the people themselves, their communities, and the social fabric that must endure through both war and eventual recovery.
Societal reconstruction during a time of conflict is always difficult. In post-conflict recovery, the urgent emphasis on physical rebuilding — such as roads, bridges, energy systems, and housing — often overshadows the less visible but equally vital needs of society. Mental health care, environmental rehabilitation, the reintegration of displaced persons, and the long-term well-being of children and youth are too often neglected in the rush to restore what is tangible.
These “softer” dimensions, however, are not secondary; they are foundational. A society cannot thrive if its people remain psychologically scarred, its environment poisoned, or its younger generations left without support and stability. True recovery requires healing alongside reconstruction.
This compilation of policy reports, due to be published this fall, Rebuilding Ukrainian Society, is designed to bring these overlooked concerns to the forefront. It focuses on the healing of individuals, families, and communities during times of conflict and beyond. By presenting actionable and forward-looking policy recommendations, the project seeks to ensure that planning for recovery does not begin only after the fighting ends, but rather now, so Ukraine is prepared to address the full spectrum of societal needs and build a resilient, peaceful future.
Grave Breaches of International Law in Tigray
Our ongoing work on Tigray examines the grave human rights violations and international crimes committed during the conflict in northern Ethiopia, with a focus on truth, accountability, and justice for survivors. Our landmark 2024 report, Genocide in Tigray: Serious Breaches of International Law in the Tigray Conflict, Ethiopia, and Paths to Accountability, provided one of the most comprehensive legal analyses to date of atrocities committed against civilians, including evidence of genocidal acts and systematic starvation, forced displacement, and mass killings.
Building on this foundation, our 2025 report, Conflict-Related Sexual and Reproductive Violence in Tigray, documents the widespread and deliberate use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and its devastating long-term impact on survivors, families, and communities. Together, these reports form part of our broader initiative to advance international accountability and survivor-centered justice in Ethiopia and across the Horn of Africa.
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Submissions
The New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy publishes work that combines geopolitical insight with subject-matter expertise. New Lines Institute publications examine tactical developments involving regimes, nonstate actors, local politics, ideologies, etc. Our work situates them in the strategic context of macro-level factors such as geography, populations, economics, military power, history, and culture. All our content must demonstrate analytical empathy and is geared toward advancing the cause of human security and stabilization and development on our planet. That said, we do not publish “op-ed” pieces, polemical content, or activist/advocacy work.
We welcome contributions from diverse experts with various sub-specialties to ensure that we consistently produce the highest-quality product. Our team firmly believes that expertise exists across the political spectrum and disciplinary fields; the key is to help our authors showcase it without indulging in partisan discussions. We expect our authors to focus on the how, why and (most importantly) the what next because our audience is already very familiar with the who, what, where, and when of the subjects we tackle.