General Announcements - October 22, 2010
New Book on Preventing Atrocity Crimes Features Chapter by Dr. Edward C. Luck
What can be done to combat genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity? A provocative new book on this topic, Mass Atrocity Crimes: Preventing Future Outrages, features a chapter by IPI Senior Vice President Dr. Edward C. Luck.
According to Dr. Luck, his chapter, “Building a Norm: The Responsibility to Protect Experience,”:
… looks at a piece of the evolution of the responsibility to protect (RtoP): the efforts of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a host of member states, and a cluster of determined advocates and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to advance its conceptual, political, and operational development over the course of 2008 and 2009. During that period (and since), this author has served as the Secretary-General’s special adviser on these matters. This chapter seeks to shed some light on the strategic and tactical choices that were made then to advance the development and acceptance of RtoP. At several points, the discussion addresses the origins and earlier development of RtoP, both because recent efforts at the UN build on them and because even the concept’s roots are disputed by some. In addition to telling the story of RtoP’s more recent adventures on the world stage, this chapter tests how well the classic model of norm development that Finnemore and Sikkink have posed holds up in this case.The book is published by Brookings Institution Press and is edited by Robert I. Rotberg.
Download the chapter by Dr. LuckRead more about the book at Brookings
Read more about the book at Amazon
The Global Observatory
Interview with John Prendergast, Co-Founder, Enough Project
Mr. Prendergast discusses the international justice system and the new ground forged by Invisible Children's Kony2012 campaign.
Key Global Events to Watch in May
A list of key upcoming meetings and events with implications for global affairs.
The Global Observatory is a new website by IPI, providing timely analysis on peace and security issues, interviews with leading policymakers, interactive maps, and more.
Recent Events
May 10, 2012
Arbour: What the Rule of Law Means
“In my understanding of the rule of law, fundamentally, what the rule of law means is that it embraces the principle of equality before the law,” Louise Arbour, president of the International Crisis Group (ICG), told an IPI audience on May 10, 2012. Ms. Arbour outlined that this means that no one is above the law and everyone has both equal protection and equal benefit of the law. 
May 03, 2012
Shachtman: Cyber Threats Akin to South Bronx, Not Pearl Harbor
“There’s not a danger of a cyber Pearl Harbor… it’s more like the South Bronx circa 1999, where there’s a danger that it becomes such a tough neighborhood that no one wants to set up shop there and people move out,” Noah Shachtman, editor of the Danger Room blog at Wired magazine and non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, told an IPI audience at a panel on cyber security on May 3, 2011.
April 27, 2012
Preventing Conflicts in Africa: The Role of Early Warning and Response Systems
An April 27th roundtable discussion at IPI titled “Preventing Conflicts in Africa: The Role of Early Warning and Response Systems” examined the progress, prospects and challenges of regional and international early warning and response mechanisms to monitor, anticipate, and mitigate potential conflict situations in Africa.