... 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”,...
... there are still cases where regional organizations such as NATO undertake their own independent military interventions, having United Nations authorization represents broad support and eliminates cases where the “responsibility to protect” rhetoric ... ... humanitarian purposes.
The norm of the responsibility to protect was unanimously adopted by all UN Member States (Libya and Syria were among those who endorsed this norm, but have failed to uphold it). Any military intervention outside of a UN Security ...
... thus exceeded its mandate and the norm of the responsibility to protect was damaged in the eyes of some nations, including 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 as in Libya might have jeopardized the concept of the responsibility to protect and pushed more countries away from arriving ...
... and are not likely to give up on their interests easily.
To be continued...
[1] U.N. Security Council, 3368th meeting.Resolution 912 (S/RES/912). 21 April 1994.
[2] U.N. Security Council. Report of the Independent Inquiry into the actions of the United Nations during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda (S/1999/1257).16 December 1999.
[3] U.N. Security Council. 6498 th meeting. Resolution 1973 (S/RES/1973). 17 March 2011.
[4] U.N. Refugee Agency. Syria Regional Refugee Response. http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/regional.php (Accessed 22 October 2012).
[5] Human Rights Watch. NATO: Investigate Civilian Deaths in Libya. 14 May 2012. http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/05/14/nato-investigate-civilian-deaths-libya ...
... 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 goal of “saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war” professed by 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 ...
For the third time since the beginning of the bloody crisis in Syria, UN Security Council failed to adopt resolution on Syria. Security Council seems not to be able to perform its main duty – a duty to restore international peace and security, a duty to protect Syrian people from ongoing violence. The blame ...
