Gregory H. Stanton, president of the international Genocide Watch, will be the guest speaker at the 16th annual human rights banquet taking place April 22 at the Best Western Coeur d'Alene Inn.

The event is presented by the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations in cooperation with the Human Rights Education Institute.

During his speech, "Ending Genocide: Local Action is the Best Way to Prevent Atrocities," Stanton will present examples of how local movements successfully defeated the Aryan Nations in the Inland Northwest, dictators Milosevic in Yugoslavia and Charles Taylor in Liberia, and caused the fall of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party.

"Just by going to this banquet, the attendees hear the wisdom of a great speaker, gain knowledge, observe diversity and understand the importance of human rights," said Tom Carter, director of HREI. "I would like to see this type of banquet take place in every city around the world."

Stanton is the research professor in Genocide Studies and Prevention at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in Arlington, Va.

He founded Genocide Watch in 1999 and launched and directed anti-genocide efforts in Cambodia and internationally.

Stanton served in the United States State Department from 1992 to 1999, where he drafted the United Nations Security Council resolutions that created the international Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Burundi Commission of Inquiry, and the Central African Arms Flow Commission. He also drafted the U.N. Peacekeeping Operations resolutions that helped bring about an end to the Mozambique civil war. In 1994, Stanton won the American Foreign Service Association's prestigious W. Averell Harriman award for "extraordinary contributions to the practice of diplomacy exemplifying intellectual courage," based on his dissent from U.S. policy on the Rwandan genocide. He wrote the State Department options paper on ways to bring the Khmer Rouge to justice in Cambodia.

He was the chair of the American Bar Association Young Lawyer's Division Committee on Human Rights and a member of the A.B.A's Standing Committee on World Order Under Law.

He has been a law professor at Washington and Lee University, American University and the University of Swaziland. Stanton holds degrees from Oberlin College, Harvard Divinity School, Yale Law School, and a doctorate in cultural anthropology from the

University of Chicago. He was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2001-2002).

"We sponsor this banquet as an annual reminder of the need to unite as a people in support of human rights and human dignity," said Christie Wood, president of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations board. "The banquet is a way for the task force to provide financial support for the educational programs at the Human Rights Education Institute."

The task force will present its 2012 Civil Rights Awards and recognize four North Idaho College minority student scholarship recipients for the 2012-2013 Academic Year. The scholarships are jointly funded by HREI and the NIC Foundation. The scholarships are named for former Idaho Governor Phil Batt and former Idaho State Senator Mary Lou Reed.

Banquet tickets are $40 each or tables for 8 persons can be purchased for $500 or $1,000. All the banquet profits go to the Human Rights Education Institute to assist their educational programs as well as the scholarships.

Info: 765-3932 or 292-2359.