The goal is to apply an assessment of risk factors to improve the predictive capability of the international community before the killing begins, and prevent it.
If signs are presented, the international community takes notes of them and watches over the countries that have a higher risk.
One predominant scholar in the field James Waller came up with his own four categories of risk factors: governance, conflict history, economic conditions, and social fragmentation.
The nation also has a higher risk if there is state legitimacy deficit, which would include high corruption, disregard for constitutional norms, or mass protests.
If a state structure is weak and provides poor basic services for the citizens, restricted the rule of law, or has a lack of civilian protection, it also creates a higher risk and could become unstable.
Also, if a state has had a record of serious violations of international human rights laws, the population of the country is more desensitised to the violence and it may also be less aware of what is happening around it.
Unequal access to basic goods and services, which can be shown by high infant mortality rates, as mothers and children would not be getting the proper care that they needed to grow and be healthy.
These guidelines were expanded upon and published in 2014 as the booklet Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes: A tool for prevention.
[3] The Fund for Peace non-profit organization, has written a conflict assessment framework manual to help "meet security challenges stemming from weak and failing states."
Sociologist Helen Fein[9] showed that preexisting antisemitism was correlated with the percentage of Jews killed in different European countries during the Holocaust.
They are prior genocides with impunity; political upheaval; ethnic minority rule; exclusionary ideology; autocracy; closed borders; and massive violations of human rights.
Risks of political instability are characteristic of what Leo Kuper[11] called "divided societies," with deep rifts in Classification.
Lack of openness to trade and other influences from outside a state's borders is characteristic of Preparation for genocide or politicide.