World leaders must call R2P (Responsibility to Protect) what it is

[pampango]

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/World+leaders+must+call+what/4369476/story.html

In 2005, United Nations member states unanimously adopted a set of principles called the Responsibility to Protect, or R2P. Shamed by its inaction in the Rwandan genocide and its late and limited response in Kosovo, the international community committed to protect populations facing mass atrocity when their own governments are unable or unwilling to protect them.

Rejecting arguments that governments in sovereign states have the absolute right to do as they please within their own borders, the world's leaders drew the line at mass murder. They endorsed a continuum of escalating responses from political condemnation, to sanctions and embargoes and, ultimately -in rare and extreme cases -to military intervention.

The international response to the crisis in Libya illustrates R2P in action: the world is telling Moammar Gadhafi that it will not stand idly by and watch him massacre his own people. The Security Council, in the first stage of the R2P process, has now imposed a range of preliminary measures to send that message and to set the stage for additional action if necessary.

Regrettably, neither the Security Council nor U.S. President Barack Obama has expressly referred to the R2P resolution as the intellectual framework within which these responses are situated. That is a missed opportunity on several counts. First and most importantly, should the council eventually be asked to authorize the use of force, the case may be more difficult if that is the first time R2P is mentioned. Second, here is a chance to demonstrate that R2P is not just about sending armies across borders, as many of its critics contend. Rather, it seeks to pressure in various ways. Military intervention is the last resort after all other measures have failed. The international response in Libya will demonstrate that more powerfully, provided the early measures are expressly linked to R2P.