ICISS report - International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect

The Responsibility to Protect 74
8.25 Our immediate hope is that by helping to clarify and focus the terms of the debate –
not as a contest between sovereignty and intervention, but as involving “the responsibility to
protect” as a common theme – a way forward will be found through the current polemics
and present impasse in that debate. We want, above all, to strengthen the prospects for
obtaining action, on a collective and principled basis, with a minimum of double standards,
in response to conscience-shocking situations of great humanitarian need crying out for that
action. If our report can help to stimulate support for such action by reminding states of their
common responsibilities, then it will have made a very significant contribution indeed.
8.26 The principles of action around which we would like to see consensus develop are
summarized in the Synopsis set out in the first pages of this report. What should happen next
to advance them? There has been much discussion, at national, regional and international
levels, on how best to approach the practical task of trying to embody any new consensus
among states on the question of intervention for human protection purposes. Some suggest
that the focus should be on drafting guidelines for the internal use of the Security Council;
some support the passing of a more formal resolution by the General Assembly; and others
have gone so far as to suggest that work should begin on the drafting of a new international
convention, or even an amendment to the UN Charter itself.
8.27 The Commission believes that it would be premature to make a judgement now as
to what will ultimately prove possible if consensus around the idea of “the responsibility to
protect” builds to the extent that we hope it will. The important thing now is to make a start,
with member states working with the Secretary-General to give substantive and procedural
content to the ideas we advance. There are major roles to be played by the Secretary-General
himself, by the Security Council and by the General Assembly, and we make some suggestions
in this respect in the following recommendations. The Commission makes no
judgement as to the most appropriate sequence in which these steps should be taken.
8.28 The Commission recommends to the General Assembly:
That the General Assembly adopt a draft declaratory resolution embodying the
basic principles of the responsibility to protect, and containing four basic elements:
❏ an affirmation of the idea of sovereignty as responsibility;
❏ an assertion of the threefold responsibility of the international community of states – to
prevent, to react and to rebuild – when faced with human protection claims in states
that are either unable or unwilling to discharge their responsibility to protect;
❏ a definition of the threshold (large scale loss of life or ethnic cleansing, actual or
apprehended) which human protection claims must meet if they are to justify military
intervention; and
❏ an articulation of the precautionary principles (right intention, last resort, proportional
means and reasonable prospects) that must be observed when military force is used
for human protection purposes.
8.29 The Commission recommends to the Security Council:
(1) That the members of the Security Council should consider and seek to reach agreement
on a set of guidelines, embracing the “Principles for Military Intervention” summarized
in the Synopsis, to govern their responses to claims for military intervention for human
protection purposes.