Minerva, Spring 2008 (Volume 32) - Citizens for Global Solutions

Various civil society efforts have aimed to raise general awareness of the responsibility
to protect. The World Federalist Movement’s New York Institute for Global Policy
has sponsored one of the more prominent civil society networks aimed at “advancing
responsibility to protect and to promote concrete policies to better enable governments,
regional organizations and the UN to protect vulnerable populations”. A number of
consultations have also taken place across Africa, engaging a wide range of civil society
organizations, governments and officials from the African Union and other regional
organizations. In May 2007, a forum of NGOs formally called upon the African Commission
on Human and Peoples’ Rights to endorse the responsibility to protect. Other
consultations in Asia and the Middle East have grappled with the issue of how to translate
the principles into regional contexts and how to overcome cultural or structural
barriers to implementing these principles. A recent upsurge of interest in the US has
led to a series of conferences and efforts to build a coalition geared toward shaping US
policy on prevention of genocide and crimes against humanity.
Research organizations in Europe, Africa and North America have contributed to developing
a better understanding of the operational implications of the responsibility
to protect. A groundbreaking study by the Henry L. Stimson Center on military preparedness
for conducting protection operations identified clear gaps that need to be
addressed “if aspirations to protect civilians are to transcend rhetoric and translate
into effective action in the field”. 25 This research led to a three-day workshop with
senior military commanders that identified lessons learned and developed operational
concepts for preventing or stopping mass atrocities. Other research has looked at how
regional organizations such as the African Union could better integrate responsibility
to protect principles into their work programmes.
While the above activities have resulted in increased awareness about the responsibility
to protect and contributed significantly to policy development, a number of organizations
have identified the need for a clearer focal point for this work in order to
develop strategies for moving this agenda forward. To this end, the International Crisis
Group teamed up with a number of NGOs and supportive governments to establish the
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. The Centre aims to be a resource base
and catalyst for ongoing activity worldwide by NGOs, governments and key international
organizations. It was officially launched in February 2008 with an ambitious
agenda: 1) advance and consolidate the World Summit consensus on R2P; 2) protect
the integrity of the R2P concept; 3) clarify when non-consensual military force can and
cannot be used consistently with R2P principles; 4) build capacity on R2P within international
institutions, governments, and regional organizations; and 5) have in place
the mechanisms and strategies necessary to generate an effective political response as
new R2P situations arise. 26 The success of the Centre and its network of associates will
undeniably hinge on its ability to attract sustained support in order to deliver on what
is arguably a very long-term agenda.
Footnotes 25–27:
25 See Holt and Berkman, The Impossible
Mandate.
26 See www.globalcentrer2p.org
27 Address by Gareth Evans, President,
International Crisis Group, to Human
Rights Law Resource Centre (Melbourne:
13 August 2007), and Community
Legal Centres and Lawyers for
Human Rights (Sydney: 28 August 2007)
[available at www.crisisgroup.org].
THE IMPORTANCE OF WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP
First and foremost, giving “real meaning” to the responsibility to protect will require
concerted effort to deepen the international commitment endorsed by the 2005 Summit
and to establish it firmly as a norm of international law. The potential for backsliding
on the summit consensus presents an ongoing danger:
For whatever reason – embarrassment about their own behaviour, embrace of
the concept but concern about its misuse, or ideological association of any
intervention with neo-imperialism or neo-colonialism – there is a recurring
willingness by a number of states to deflate or undermine the concept. 27
If the responsibility to protect is to have any meaning at all, it will need to be promoted
in such a way that it does not get unnecessarily diluted. Since the 2005 Summit, there
has been a tendency to apply the “responsibility to protect” as a catchphrase to a wide
19 • Minerva #32 • June 2008