The Responsibility to Protect

IPI’s Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) Project provides direct and ongoing support to the efforts of the United Nations to implement and operationalize RtoP. In February 2008, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Edward C. Luck, IPI’s Senior Vice President and Director of Studies, to be his Special Adviser, focusing primarily on the responsibility to protect. He asked Professor Luck to develop the conceptual, institutional, and political dimensions of the RtoP concept, based on paragraphs 138 and 139 of the Outcome Document from the 2005 World Summit.

IPI has provided policy research, convening, drafting, and core staff support for this work, as the General Assembly has yet to approve any posts or funding for the Secretary-General’s efforts to move RtoP from promise to practice. Several IPI staff members, one consultant, and one intern have provided essential research on key policy issues, as well as helping to maintain contact with the wide array of scholars, activists, and officials from around the world engaged in RtoP activities and policymaking. IPI has hosted a series of RtoP events at its Trygve Lie Center, across the street from UN headquarters, that have attracted a broad cross-section of the UN community, including diplomats, Secretariat officials, scholars, and NGO leaders. As part of its Coping with Crisis Program, IPI organized a two-day roundtable on conflict Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect on 8-9 July 2008. Chaired by Claude Heller, the Permanent Representative to the UN of Mexico, the roundtable considered two discussion papers prepared by Colin Keating, Executive Director of the Security Council Report and former Permanent Representative of New Zealand to the UN. On 17 September 2008, IPI held a luncheon book launch for Gareth Evans’ The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All.

IPI has joined with partners in several parts of the world to co-sponsor RtoP or RtoP/genocide prevention roundtables, workshops, and conferences involving a mix of experts, diplomats, and officials. Whenever possible, IPI works with the Office of the UN Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide, Francis Deng, as co-convenors of such events.

Recent activities include:

Stellenbosch, South Africa, 13-15 December 2007, “Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities and the Responsibility to Protect: Challenges for the UN and the International Community in the 21st Century”, co-sponsored by the Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR), University of Cape Town and the Office of the UN Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide. The rapporteurs’ report is available on-line or in hard copy through IPI.
IPI provided a background paper, rapporteur, and technical assistance for the Stanley Foundation’s UN in the Next Decade conference, “Actualizing the Responsibility to Protect,” Evora, Portugal, from 20-25 June 2008. Click here for the conference report, prepared by IPI’s Christoph Mikulaschek. Professor Luck will speak at or participate in several Stanley Foundation meetings on RtoP in or around Washington, DC in the Fall of 2008.
From 11-13 July 2008, IPI co-sponsored a Wilton Park (United Kingdom) conference on “Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: the Role of Regional and Sub-Regional Partners.” Click here or below for the conference report.
On 23-24 October 2008, IPI will co-sponsor, with the InterAfrica Group and the Office of the UN Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide, a roundtable in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on “The Responsibility to Protect in Africa.“

Professor Luck has spoken on RtoP issues, as well, at scores of meetings and conferences sponsored by other organizations in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America over the past year.

Two of his recent RtoP publications are attached: “The Responsible Sovereign and the Responsibility to Protect,” in Joachim W. Müller and Karl P. Sauvant, eds., Annual Review of United Nations Affairs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2008) and a Stanley Foundation Policy Analysis Brief, “The United Nations and the Responsibility to Protect” (Muscatine, IA: August 2008). He will also have an article in the inaugural 2009 issue of Global Responsibility to Protect (an RtoP journal published by Brill Academic Publishers). On 17 June 2008, he briefed the Subcommittee on International Development, Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs and International Environmental Protection of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee concerning RtoP perspectives on “International Disaster Assistance: Policy Options.” His prepared statement is attached. For the fullest exposition of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s approach to RtoP click (UN Doc. SG/SM/11701) for his speech on 15 July 2008 in Berlin. Also available below.

Selected Documents and Publications

Print this page

Contacts

Edward C. Luck
Senior Vice President and Director of Studies
(212) 225-9624
Email

Marilyn Messer
Special Assistant to the Senior Vice President
(212) 225-9624