Suchergebnisse

How far did the unanimous agreement on the responsibility to protect at the 2005 UN World Summit really mark the international community's acceptance of a new norm supporting collective action — including ultimately military action — when governments through either incapacity or ill-will fail to protect their own people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity? This article describes the rapid initial emergence and acceptance of the concept, but also the subsequent denial and evasion by a number of governments of the commitments they signed up to in 2005. It addresses the five main conceptual misunderstandings and misapprehensions evident in the public debate that need to be overcome if the argument in support of the responsibility to protect is to be won.

Since the end of the Cold War there has been a dramatic decline in the number of armed conflicts, battle deaths, & the deadliness of individual conflicts; along with a dramatic increase in the number of conflicts resolved by active peacemaking. The best explanation is the increasing effectiveness, for all its shortcomings, of the United Nations security machinery. Five major lessons have been learned for better handling of each of the crucial stages of the conflict cycle -- preventing the outbreak, continuation & recurrence of conflict, Violent extremism -- or terrorism -- remains a more intractable problem, but, here too, the strategies required to succeed are becoming clearer. The ideas, knowledge & experience are all there: what is needed is the political leadership to apply them. Adapted from the source document.

"Just about everything the US does -- or chooses not to do -- makes an enormous difference to everyone else," says the former Foreign Minister of Australia & current president of the International Crisis Group. If the US is to enjoy its power, it might want to make friends, rather than enemies, with other nations. Adapted from the source document.