R2P

Celebrating the Ten Year Anniversary of the Responsibility to Protect: Battling WWII Global Displacement Rates with an Emphasis on Implementation

By Heather Cohen

Tomorrow marks the celebration of the ten year anniversary of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). At the United Nations, the President of the General Assembly (PGA) will lead a thematic panel discussion from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. EST in the Trusteeship Council Chamber. For those of you who will not be in New York, you can tune into the live webcast here.

The event brings together leaders and eminent experts involved in the creation, development, and implementation of the World Summit commitment. Panelists will reflect on the progress made to date, current and emerging challenges, and opportunities to accelerate implementation. Member States and observers will have the opportunity to ask questions and make brief comments from the floor.

From the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect:

The adoption of the responsibility to protect at the 2005 World Summit represented a significant step towards realizing the international community’s commitment to end the most horrific forms of violence and persecution. Member States affirmed their primary responsibility to protect their own populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and accepted a collective responsibility to assist each other in fulfilling this responsibility. They also declared their preparedness to take timely and decisive action, in accordance with the United Nations Charter and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, when national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations from these four crimes and violations.

Significant progress has been made during the past decade in elaborating this commitment. The Secretary-General developed a framework for implementation based on three mutually reinforcing pillars, which provides guidance on how States can best protect their populations (Pillar I), assist and encourage each other to uphold their responsibility to protect (Pillar II), and work collectively to ensure timely and decisive response (Pillar III).

Member States have also devoted considerable attention to the responsibility to protect. Since 2009, the General Assembly has adopted a resolution, held a formal debate, and convened six annual informal interactive dialogues. The Security Council has adopted more than thirty resolutions and Presidential Statements that explicitly reference the responsibility to protect. This body has also held an Arria formula meeting on the responsibility to protect. The Human Rights Council has included the principle in fourteen resolutions, covering both thematic and country-specific topics. At the regional level, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has adopted a resolution on strengthening the responsibility to protect in Africa and the European Union has continuously supported the responsibility to protect and its operationalization.

This extensive consideration has contributed to the development of a consensus on core aspects of the responsibility to protect. Member States agree on the need to prioritize prevention, to utilize a full range of diplomatic, political, and humanitarian measures when addressing situations that feature the four crimes and violations, to consider military force only as a last resort, and to ensure that implementation of the responsibility to protect is in accordance with the United Nations Charter and other established principles of international law.

The past decade has also witnessed growing commitment to transforming the principle into practice. International engagement in cases like Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Kenya and Kyrgyzstan successfully mitigated the risks of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, demonstrating that the collective weight of the international community can make a difference. The responsibility to protect has also spurred the development of new institutional capacity, including global, regional, and sub-regional mechanisms dedicated to the prevention of these crimes and violations. By the end of 2015, fifty one Member States and the European Union had appointed focal points for the responsibility to protect.

Despite this progress, urgent challenges remain. Acts that may constitute genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity are currently occurring in far too many crises. The world has also witnessed the alarming rise of non-State armed groups that seek to spread violent extremist ideologies and are brazenly perpetrating atrocity crimes. These situations have created protection challenges of a staggering scale and produced widespread humanitarian crises, including a global migration and refugee crisis. These challenges have also stretched the ability of the international community to generate timely and decisive collective responses. The initiative by France and Mexico on restraint on the use of the veto, the Accountability, Coherence and Transparency (ACT) Group Code of Conduct, and similar proposals by the Elders have all encouraged Member States to refrain from taking action that either hinders or delays robust international responses to genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.

In more general terms, not all Member States have become party to the international conventions that set out the legal framework for the prevention and punishment of the crimes specified by the responsibility to protect, including the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The Secretary-General and President of the International Committee of the Red Cross have also recently drawn attention to an alarming decline in respect for international humanitarian and human rights law, particularly in situations where national authorities have argued that exceptional security threats or political crises justify temporary abrogation from their legal obligations.

Given the ongoing occurrence of these grave international crimes and in light of the progress made over the past decade, it is clear that the responsibility to protect remains a vital and enduring commitment. As Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has noted, it “offers an alternative to indifference and fatalism” and represents a “milestone in transforming international concern about people facing mortal danger into meaningful response.” The challenge now facing the international community is both practical and political: how to best uphold its responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity by accelerating implementation.

Ten years since the universal adoption of R2P, it remains a vital and enduring commitment, but the next decade must be about moving from commitment to implementation. Partnerships for prevention will be key and CLAIHR is proud to be a member of the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect. In the words of the PGA, “[a]ll of us, at the United Nations and beyond, have responsibility to take greater steps to promote tolerance, human rights, and human dignity.”

By |February 25th, 2016|Blog|
Read More

The Responsibility to Protect Turns 10

By Logan St. John-Smith

This year is the tenth anniversary of the 2005 World Summit, which brought together more than 170 Heads of State and Government at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York.

One of the most important developments to come out of that historic meeting is encapsulated in paragraphs 138-140 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document, where the UN General Assembly endorsed what is known as the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), and made a commitment to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.  Should national authorities fail in their duties to protect their citizens, and peaceful means of achieving this goal be inadequate, collective military action may be authorized through Chapter VII of the UN Charter and the Security Council.

The Responsibility to Protect doctrine was first articulated in the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty in December 2001 as the result of an initiative sponsored by the Government of Canada. To its supporters, R2P represents a significant normative development and a foundational step for greater protection for human rights globally. To its detractors, R2P represents a violation of the principles of state sovereignty and a license for war.

For both sides of this debate, the 2011 NATO-led intervention in Libya that ousted Muammar Gaddafi is a watershed moment. UN Security Council Resolution 1973 authorized member states to take all necessary measures to protect civilians under threat of attack in Libya, leading to an eight month bombing campaign that culminated in the death of the Libyan leader. This explicit invocation of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine in justifying military action is viewed today both as the vindication of the principles endorsed at the 2005 World Summit, and as the proof of its potential for abuse.

The Secretary General’s Sixth Report on the Responsibility to protect was released in August 2014. Produced annually since 2009, these reports are part of an informal dialogue at the UN General Assembly regarding the further implementation and entrenchment of the Responsibility to Protect. Noting that the doctrine is being tested by the unfolding crises in Syria and elsewhere, the Secretary General this year called on member states to use the 10th anniversary of the 2005 World Summit to craft an ambitious vision for the future of the Responsibility to Protect.

 

By |May 4th, 2015|Blog|
Read More

Remembering the Rwandan Genocide

By Jessica Thrower

This month we commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide – an appalling atrocity where an estimated 800,000 to 1 million Rwandans were murdered in a three-month period that began April 7th, 1994. What are some of these lessons learned from the Rwandan genocide?

  1. It starts with words

One of the first lessons learned from the Rwandan genocide is that these events occurred as a result of state-sanctioned incitement to hate. The media conducted an orchestrated dehumanization and demonization of the minority Tutsi population, calling the Tutsis “cockroaches”. A private radio station, Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines, later helped conduct the genocidal onslaught by giving specific orders on how to carry out killings, including identifying individuals to be attacked and where specifically they could be found.

Although Rwandans and international observers deplored the media campaign conducted against the Tutsis early on, no one intervened to stop the calls of hatred or the promotion of violence. In an attempt to prevent genocides before they happen, the international community must ensure that they are prosecuting individuals that are trying to incite genocide (as it is a crime under the Genocide Convention) and work to jam airwaves to prevent organized killing campaigns.

  1. Violence used against vulnerable populations

The second lesson learned is the consistent use of violence targeted at vulnerable populations. During mass atrocities, women, children, and refugees are often the first victims of oppression and brutality. The evidence presented at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda showed that sexual violence and rape are regularly used as a weapon of war and a means to ensure the continued degradation, humiliation, and torture of the population.

  1. Danger of indifference and consequences of inaction

The third lesson learned is the danger of indifference and the consequences of inaction. The Rwandan genocide not only occurred because of state-sanctioned violence, but also because of international idleness regarding the establishment of an arms embargo, the stopping of aid, and use of military intervention.

In the Rwandan genocide, soldiers, the national police, and militia used small arms, grenades, and mortars. They attacked churches, schools, hospitals, and other regular gathering points for Tutsis, killing thousands of individuals. After this first wave of assaults, the survivors were then further terrorized by a second wave of attacks from civilians that wielded machetes or homemade weapons. Although the UN Security Council eventually established an arms embargo against the country, this occurred too late to prevent further genocide. Had the UN Security council imposed an embargo earlier, it would have led to fewer arms being available in the country, making attacks less effective.
In addition to establishing an arms embargo, international actors should have sent a clear condemnation of genocidal government and that they would stop aid if further violence occurred. The Rwandan regime was heavily dependent on aid and the government could not operate for long without it. If the international community announced that direct foreign assistance would be denied, it would have further called into question the legitimacy of the government and its long-term viability. This might have made it harder for the génocidaires to persuade Hutu elite and Rwandans to go along with their plans and follow their directives.

In some cases, the international community must also be willing to use force to end the killing. At the beginning of the crisis, the UN peacekeepers did not have the mandate or the personnel required for effective action. If the mandate had been broadened to allow for offensive action and had the peacekeepers received support from international troops, such as the French, Belgian, and Italian troops that were sent to evacuate their citizens, the combined forces could have saved the lives of many people and limited the number of civilians killed.

Critical reflection

In remembering the Rwandan Genocide, the international community must recommit to preventing and protecting human rights and the victims of mass atrocities. Although some of the results since Rwanda have been encouraging, such as the eventual NATO intervention in the Balkans, British troops in Sierra Leone, UN peacekeeping and French-led European troops in the Congo, the international community must continue to learn and become more effective in responding to violence. The international community must show that the pleas and concerns coming from Syria and most recently the Central African Republic are not falling on deaf ears.

By |April 26th, 2015|Blog|
Read More