BERLIN — Police leaders and associations from Europe and North America signed a memorandum of understanding in Berlin on April 9, formally launching the “Not on Our Watch — The Democratic Policing Initiative,” a new five-year effort focused on democratic policing, international coordination and protecting vulnerable communities.
The agreement includes the German Police Union, the European Federation of Police Unions, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Sheriffs’ Association, the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, the Small & Rural Law Enforcement Executives Association and the International Police Delegation. Rutgers University’s Miller Center on Policing and Community Resilience and the University of Virginia’s Center for Public Safety and Justice are also part of the collaboration.
According to the press release, the framework is intended to strengthen democratic policing, improve coordination across borders and support communities facing rising extremist threats, including antisemitism, targeted violence and increasing pressure on democratic institutions.
On April 18, 2023, an intercontinental delegation of chiefs of police and sheriffs participated in the International March of the Living for the first time since the organization’s inception in 1988. Marching alongside 10,000 others, including 42 Holocaust survivors, 16 members of the police delegation, hailing from six different nations across North America and Europe, walked the nearly two-mile path from Auschwitz I to Auschwitz II, or Auschwitz-Birkenau, on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Here is their story.
“This is not symbolic,” said Paul Goldenberg, chair of the International Police Delegation and leader of the Not on Our Watch initiative. “History shows that democratic institutions rarely fail all at once; they erode. When policing loses its moral clarity or independence, societies follow. This initiative is about ensuring that law enforcement leaders recognize those early warning signs and act together before that erosion becomes irreversible.”
The participating organizations said the initiative will focus on early threat detection and intelligence-sharing, joint training on community protection, de-escalation and ethical decision-making, coordinated responses to emerging extremist threats, support for officer well-being and resilience, and reinforcing democratic values, constitutional policing and public trust.
Organizers said the Berlin signing formally shifts the Not on Our Watch: Operationalizing Never Again program from an annual convening to what they described as a long-term operational alliance. In the days after the signing, more than 130 senior law enforcement leaders are expected to gather in Krakow, Poland, for executive-level sessions and the International March of the Living.
