The Responsibility to Protect: A Background Briefing - WHAT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY TO

Updated as of April 2021 The Responsibility to Protect: A Background Briefing WHAT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY TO The 2001 report of the International Commission on PROTECT AND WHY DO WE NEED IT? Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) formulated the alternative principle of "the responsibility to protect," focusing not on the legal or moral "right" of outsiders to The United Nations (UN) was establi. [...] When, populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing during the 1990s, horrific violence broke out inside the and crimes against humanity." borders of such countries as Somalia, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, the world was ill-prepared to act and The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) concept sought to was paralyzed by disagreement over the limits of national confront both the Rwanda trag. [...] willfully causing great suffering or serious injury The first three crimes are legally defined in various to body or health against the sick, wounded and international legal documents, such as the 1948 shipwrecked persons not taking part in Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the hostilities, prisoners of war and other detainees, Crime of Genocide, the 1949 Geneva Conventions and civili. [...] The intense diplomatic engagement following the disputed election in Kenya (2007) and the work of neighbors and the UN to support the government of Burundi as it addressed ethnic conflict (1995-2005) Conventions and various treaties and covenants demonstrate cooperative efforts to prevent atrocities. [...] Working closely with the common interest in R2P and in advancing the norm Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, the two within the UN-system.