Originally published on the CGS blog on August 26, 2009.
Led by the recently formed International NGO Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect of which GlobalSolutions.org is a part, efforts are underway at the United Nations to introduce a new legal mechanism to help prevent crimes against humanity.
Under international law, no country may intervene in another country’s internal matters. Also, the U.N. Security Council, the only U.N. body allowed to exercise military force, is not permitted to take actions for purely internal matters – its responsibility is solely for the restoration of international peace and security. Unfortunately, most genocides and crimes against humanity are internal matters, usually taking place in the context of a civil war between rival ethnic groups. The result is that any international intervention efforts to prevent the genocide are illegal under international law.
Past efforts at intervention, such as the NATO intervention in Kosovo in the late 90s, are widely considered illegal even if morally justified. This obviously discourages many countries from intervening.
The concept of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ places responsibility on states with regards to how they treat their citizens. If the concept is successfully introduced into international law, it would mean that countries no longer have free rein to treat their citizens as they like. It would mean they have a responsibility to protect their citizens against genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. Should they fail in this responsibility (by being unwilling or unable to stop genocide, or perhaps even participating), then that responsibility would fall to the international community to protect the citizens of that country. This would make the legal case for intervention much stronger, and allow countries to make the choice to intervene more quickly.
