On 5 September 2012, fifty-eight member states, one regional organization and two civil society organizations participated in the fourth United Nations informal interactive dialogue on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) held in the UN General Assembly. The dialogue on “timely and decisive response” marked an important turning point in member states’ discussions on R2P. For the first time in an interactive dialogue the majority of states focused their contributions on how best to operationalize R2P, rather than debate its status or whether it should be implemented.

The following report from the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect summarizes the debate and analyzes its contribution to the ongoing dialogue on R2P.