Message from the Executive Director

Like people, ideas come of age and 2011 was the year of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). In 2005 when the United Nations decided that all countries have a shared responsibility to prevent and halt genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity, it seemed like a quaint notion. Well intentioned but how was it going to be done?

In its infancy there was a need to define what R2P was and how it would be applied. Between 2005 and 2010 R2P appeared in three important UN resolutions or statements. Last year it appeared in six, including four Security Council resolutions on Libya, South Sudan and Yemen. R2P also influenced a major effort to protect civilians in Côte d'Ivoire. In the glacial world of global diplomacy, this represents momentous progress. R2P has moved from theory to practice.

Libya was crucial. R2P enabled the world to prevent a massacre in Benghazi. Lives were saved. But as the civil war dragged on some supporters of the Libya intervention started talking less about protecting civilians and more about regime change. The emphasis moved from "defend Benghazi" to "remove Qaddafi". This was a mistake.

R2P was never intended to be regime change with mood lighting. Instead, as Ed Luck, the UN Secretary General’s Special Advisor on R2P, often says, the focus of R2P is on getting regimes to change their behavior. In this sense R2P remains primarily a preventive doctrine.

There has been some backlash against R2P in the aftermath of Libya. A number of people have raised criticisms about the manner in which the UN's mandate was possibly overstretched. David Reiff in the New York Times went so far as to declare "R2P, R.I.P" after Tripoli fell to anti-Qaddafi rebels. The evidence of extirpation is supposedly represented in the UN Security Council’s subsequent failure to halt ongoing crimes against humanity in Syria.

But despite ongoing debate about the Libya intervention, an overwhelming majority of UN member states remain committed to R2P. Indeed, Brazil has recently made a significant and positive contribution to advancing R2P via a dialogue on the operational need for "responsibility while protecting". A major governmental meeting on R2P will take place in West Africa in April and more than 31 states have indicated an interest in establishing a global network of "R2P Focal Points" to prevent future mass atrocity crimes. The organizing group includes the Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect and four governments from all corners of the globe – Australia, Costa Rica, Denmark and Ghana. R2P also continues to influence efforts at the Human Rights Council and within the UN General Assembly to mobilize a response to crimes against humanity in Syria.

Over the next few months the GCR2P will be working on:

• Continuing to publish “R2P Monitor”, our new publication on populations at risk that has already become an important resource for policymakers and UN diplomats working on mass atrocity issues.

• Publishing a significant research paper on R2P and the Libya intervention.

• Continuing to work with the UN on mainstreaming R2P.

• Continuing to offer high-level advice to governments and UN Missions on populations at risk in various parts of the world.

• Preparing for the second major R2P Focal Points meeting in September.

• Preparing for a number of regional meetings on building R2P preventive capacities in partnership with sub-regional organizations in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere.

The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, directly addressed the issue of controversy around the implementation of R2P at a ministerial meeting that GCR2P co-hosted in September: “I would far prefer the growing pains of an idea whose time has come to sterile debates about principles that are never put into practice.” Although only six years old, R2P remains our best hope to make “never again” a living principle rather than something we whisper as we shuffle past the memorials and mass graves of those who died while the world sat in silence. R2P means nothing less than an end to injustice, impunity and inaction.

Simon Adams, Executive Director.

sadams@gc.cuny.edu
Ph: +1 212 817 1941

Simon Adams quoted in the Media:

Leaders of India, Brazil, and SA in Firing Line Over Stance on Syria, Business Day, South Africa, 19 October 2011

S. Adams quoted in article on Sudan, The Independent, 28 September 2011

Sudan, South Sudan to Pull Troops From Disputed Region, CNN 8 September 2011

Simon Adams' R2P Op-eds:

A Dipomatic Surge for Syria?, Huffington Post, 10 February 2012

Russia Veto, Huffington Post, 3 February 2012

South Africa and Syria at the UN, News 24, 19 October 2011

R2P and the Libya Mission, LA Times, 28 September 2011

'Our Responsibility' to Protect Syria's People, The West Australian, 5 May 2011