... threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." (MLK)
The international community strongly denounced the violence in Syria but so far it hasn’t been able to provide an effective framework to prevent and stop these atrocities. The responsibility to protect (R2P) doctrine - adopted in 2005 to embody the promises made by world leaders to prevent a future “Cambodia”,...
... non-interference contradict with the spirit of the norm of the responsibility to protect – stating that the international community should step up if endangered civilians are not protected by their own government.
Russia and China’s veto on Syria places the UN Security Council in a deadlock, paralyzing any legitimate actions to that end, at a time when the world community should help cease the massive violence in Syria. The combined population of Russia and China constitute only 21% of the ...
... different from full scale war. Proportional means would put a constraint on the use of force, which should be minimized during humanitarian interventions.
Coupled with proportional means, a clear mandate authorized by the UN Security Council containing ... ... China and Russia. This is partly responsible for the failure on the part of the Security Council to take any decisive actions on Syria – Russia now suspects Western nations of pushing their own geopolitical agendas in Syria. Such excess of UN mandate ...
... where the UN Security Council condemned war crimes and crimes against humanity in that country and authorized all necessary measures to protect civilians.
Even though the lessons from Rwanda are still fresh in memory and the number of victims in the Syrian civil war has already climbed to 30,000 (with the death toll soaring each month) with an additional 355,268 Syrian refugees having fled to neighboring countries, the UN continues to fail to take appropriate actions to stop crimes against humanity....
... means often comes at a cost of more victims and suffering. Thus we should assess upfront if peaceful means will have a chance of success in order to avoid wasting too much time stagnating on approaches that are unlikely to succeed.
For example in Syria, for almost two years now the international community has tried unsuccessfully to rely upon peaceful means such as six-point Annan’s plan, the UN observer mission, a GA resolution, and presidential statements to condemn the violence, but these ...
... the international community in the United Nations Charter quite often collides with the real resources and risks that UN Member States are willing to commit to achieve it. The horrifying levels of human suffering experienced in Somalia, Rwanda and now Syria are just some of examples of the UN’s failure to comply with its founding goal of protecting civilians from mass atrocities and violence.
The universalization of human rights and the rights of nations for political self-determination led ...
... because it has a naval base at the Syrian port of Tartus. It is Russia’s only strategically significant military presence in the entire Middle East. Who knows what will happen to the base if the armed rebels take control of the country? As well, Syria is Russia’s only Arab allay, and Moscow, of course, would like to keep it that way.
It is no secret that Moscow has problems with the notion of humanitarian interventions. It is not clear what those criteria for intervention are, and how to make sure that intervention doesn’t infringe on state’s sovereignty and that interveners are not guided by selfish ends. Unlawful exercise of ...
