The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All - Hardcover

Gareth Evans

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0815725043 ISBN 13: 9780815725046

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press, 2008

Synopsis

After the Holocaust, the world vowed it would 'never again!' permit such mass atrocity crimes, yet many have since gone unchecked, from the killing fields of Cambodia to the machetes of Rwanda to the ongoing nightmare in Darfur. Gareth Evans, president of the International Crisis Group, explains this lack of government action. In a more hopeful vein, however, he also shows how the emergence of a new international norm can protect the peoples of the world from mass crimes.The Responsibility to Protect (or R2P) concept was born in 2001 and embraced at the UN World Summit in 2005. The heart of this new international norm is the belief that if sovereign governments fail to protect their own people from genocide, ethnic cleansing, or other major crimes against humanity, then the wider international community must take whatever action is appropriate. The new norm emphasizes assistance and prevention, not coercion, but it also accepts that it is sometimes right to fight. The bottom line is that the world cannot just stand by. 'Never again' is still more a hope than a promise, however. The 2005 consensus remains politically fragile, with many developing states worrying that R2P goes too far or is too easily capable of misuse by major powers. Political will must be solidified, and effective institutional capacity must be created.This important book meets these challenges head on, clarifying misunderstandings about the new norm's scope and limits and spelling out the steps needed to make R2P work in practice. Evans shows how Responsibility to Protect is far better equipped to end mass atrocity crimes than is 'the right to intervene' or any other 'humanitarian intervention' doctrine of the past. The book is enlivened throughout by real-world examples, analyses of current events, and assessments drawn from the author's own vast experience.

About this title

Review:

"No one is better suited than Gareth Evans to describe this revolution of opinion and trace its consequences." --Douglas Hurd, "Survival"

"Evans cuts a fascinating figure on the world stage. Always informed, sometimes alarming, never dull, he has a diplomat's ability to listen and reflect, and a politician's will to dominate a room. He is also an able and prolific writer." --Scott Malcomson, "New York Times Book Review"

"Much of the book is an elaboration of the tools and strategies that are available to intervening states before, during, and after crises break out. The debate on when and how the world should act in humanitarian crises will continue-and this inspired manifesto will be its essential guidebook." --G. John Ikenberry, "Foreign Affairs"

"An account of the emergence of a new international norm--the responsibility to protect--by the person who has done more to develop it than any." --Allan Gyngell, "International Studies"

"I strongly endorse Gareth Evans's eloquent argument. This call to prevent terrible crimes against humanity like those I witnessed in Rwanda is one we must answer." --General Romeo Dallaire, author of "Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda"

"We can no longer ignore atrocities beamed into our living rooms. Our conscience demands that we react whenever people suffer, from Rwanda to Srebrenica, from Darfur to Gaza. This volume could not be more timely or relevant." --Kishore Mahbubani, Dean, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore, and author of The New Asian Hemisphere

"We have been shamed so often by our failure to protect the victims of mass atrocity crimes. Gareth Evans's book is a passionate, lucidly argued, and immensely well-informed guide to how the world can do better." --Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town

"The Responsibility to Protect is the most important and imaginative doctrine to emerge on the international scene for decades. No one is better placed than Gareth Evans to lead the debate about its scope and application to contemporary crises, such as Darfur, Myanmar, and Zimbabwe. And no one could have done it better than in this comprehensive and sophisticated book." --Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2004 08, and chief prosecutor, Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda Tribunals, 1996 99"

"A tour de force.... Gareth Evans, more than anyone, has persuaded leaders to accept their responsibility to protect the vulnerable, and convinced us that we can no longer be passive bystanders." --Jan Egeland, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, 2003 06"

About the Author:

Gareth Evans is president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, a leading international nongovernmental organization advising on conflict prevention and resolution. He came to ICG in 2000, after eight years as Australia's foreign minister. No one could be more qualified to write this book. Evans co-chaired the Canadian-sponsored International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty that initiated the Responsibility to Protect idea in 2001, and he was a member of the UN Secretary General's High Level Panel that in 2004 proposed its adoption by theWorld Summit. He won the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order for his 1994 Foreign Policy article,"Cooperative Security and Intra-State Conflict."

About this edition

• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0815725043
• ISBN 13: 9780815725046
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 349