To mark the 20th anniversary of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which was unanimously adopted at the 2005 UN World Summit, the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and R2P released an interview series with experts on human rights and atrocity prevention. H.E. José Alberto Bríz Gutiérrez, Permanent Representative of Guatemala to the United Nations, and Co-Chair of the Group of Friends of the Responsibility to Protect in New York, shares his insights on the essence of the responsibility to protect. He also highlights that R2P, “places human lives at the heart of international relations, challenging the world not to look away when the most serious crimes are committed, and urges collective action to stop them.”