Minerva, Fall 2011 - Citizens for Global Solutions

A new series of articles in “think.”examines the main themes of the threeissue areas on which the Stanley Foundationfocuses its programming: globalleadership, nuclear material security, andgenocide prevention. Other portions haveappeared in earlier editions of Minerva.Rachel Gerber is a program officer inthe Stanley Foundation’s Policy and OutreachDepartment where she is responsiblefor human protection programming.Earlier, she worked for UNHCR and theUnited Nations Office at Geneva onissues related to refugee resettlement,UN system-wide coherence, interagencycollaboration, and the MillenniumDevelopment Goals. From 2004 to2006, her work in the US Peace Corpsin Ukraine centered on secondary-leveleducation, curriculum development, andlocal capacity building. Rachel Gerber’sacademic background at CornellUniversity and the Graduate Institute ofInternational and Development Studiesin Geneva (IHEID) includes specializationin conflict analysis, human rights,and humanitarian law.The Trials and Tests Faced by R2PRachel GerberAugust 2011In a snapshot of the current debate surrounding the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) andglobal efforts to prevent large-scale violence against civilians, Libya and Syria woulddominate a frame of amorphous figures with blurred edges, each shifting haphazardlyin unknown directions.In the midst of such a muddle, it’s easy to get caught up in the moment. We seek toisolate individual crises, actors, positions, and decisions, and wonder how they will impactthe future of political principles like the Responsibility to Protect — which assertsthat all states have the responsibility to protect civilians from genocide, crimes againsthumanity, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes.As NATO’s mandate in Libya enters its sixth month and the Syrian government clingsto power with increasing violence, some claim R2P has failed to deliver its promiseto ensure protection for civilians whose governments have turned against them. Whileit would be foolish to claim that unfolding events and global action (or inaction) willhave no influence on the long-term development of the Responsibility to Protect principle,pointing to today’s snapshot as evidence of failure ignores its broader context.When taken at a wider angle, the current picture reveals many positive trends.The United Nations, a product of the experience of two world wars, was created toprevent violent conflict between nations, not within them. For much of its existenceand within very recent memory, insistence that the UN could not intervene in any matterthat was “essentially within the jurisdiction of any state” kept state-generated violenceagainst civilians off the agenda of decision-making bodies like the UN SecurityCouncil.Such arguments, however, were marginal to debates over threats to civilians in Libyaand Syria. UN member nations questioned whether and what kind of action the SecurityCouncil should take to counter such threats, but never the basic right of the councilto do so. “It’s not your business” is no longer a viable argument to give the internationalcommunity when it comes to internal violence targeted at civilians—a recent and strikingshift in the history of global politics for which R2P deserves its share of credit.Far from a checklist that mandates uniform action, R2P is a dynamic policy frameworkthat is meant to twist, bend, and adapt as best it can to the complex realities of the worldit hopes to improve.Beyond Libya and Syria, it informs many and diverse approaches to crisis, each ofwhich gives it a chance to prove its mettle in the long run. Efforts have been long underway to usher South Sudan into statehood without resort to civilian-targeted violence.Stabilization support continues in Southern Kyrgyzstan to prevent a resurgence of violenceagainst ethnic Uzbek populations.Such policies may be isolated — and as yet imperfect — but broader initiatives are alsounderway to improve global prevention and response capacities. A network of capitalbasedgovernment officials focused on the national-level implementation of R2P continuesto grow. On August 4, the Obama administration issued a presidential directiveto establish an Atrocities Prevention Board of top leaders within the US governmentto ensure better and more consistent responses to global threats of genocide, crimesagainst humanity, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes.40 • Minerva #39 • November 2011