| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
TODAY, THIS QUESTION is on the minds of politicians all over the world. Last September, it stirred up heated debates at the 67th Session of the UN General Assembly and was discussed at an informal Ministerial Round Table Discussion on the Responsibility to Protect: Deepening Our Commitment to Mass Atrocity Prevention initiated by a group of countries on the margins of the main event. The issue was pushed to the forefront by the recent and consequential changes in the world philosophy of crisis response brought about by the events on the international scene, the latest being the dramatic conflicts in Libya and Syria which shed a new light on the previous experience of conflict settlement. Opinions vary yet there is a more or less concerted conviction that it is the governments' priority to resort to preventive measures and to protect the civilians and that this should not be delegated to the international community. A group of predominantly Western countries accepts the above with a reservation that if preventive measures fail the international community should have the right to use force.
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