HRF Co-Sponsors Oxford University Press Book on “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P)

NEW YORK (November 4, 2011)—The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) announces the publication of The Responsibility to Protect: The Promise of Stopping Mass Atrocities in Our Time, an Oxford University Press book co-sponsored by HRF’s Center for Law and Democracy. Written by a global team of authors, this international law volume provides a comprehensive overview of how the “responsibility to protect” developed and how it can best be applied to current and future humanitarian crises.

Commonly referred to as “R2P,” the responsibility to protect is an international law doctrine adopted in 2005 by the United Nations after years of consensus building in the wake of genocides in Rwanda (1994) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (1995). The doctrine obligates states to collectively use military force in order to stop mass atrocities such as genocide, large-scale loss of life, and ethnic cleansing. R2P was implemented in 2011 in Libya by NATO forces under the mandate of the UN Security Council.

“World War II was a wake-up call for the world’s democratic nations. They began to recognize that there is a responsibility for preventing despotic regimes from killing their own people on a massive scale,” said HRF president Thor Halvorssen. “Almost 80 years after the Holocaust and decades after genocides and mass murders in Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Srebrenica, R2P was invoked to prevent genocide in Libya this year. The illuminating analysis of R2P found in this book couldn’t be timelier, and HRF is pleased to finance its publication,” said Halvorssen.

Prefaced by HRF chairman Vaclav Havel and Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu, The Responsibility to Protect is a collection of articles and essays by scholars, diplomats, and human rights activists. Contributors include former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, former International Crisis Group president Gareth Evans, and UN R2P advisor Edward Luck. The book is produced and edited by international legal experts Irwin Cotler and Jared Genser.

“Agreement on humanitarian values was not enough to prevent the horrific genocides that were perpetrated after the Holocaust, and it was certainly not the only thing behind the international community’s actions in Libya this year,” said HRF general counsel Javier El-Hage. “This type of international decision-making and military engagement faces a complex set of legal challenges that must be considered very carefully by experts in the field. HRF will continue to support this type of critical inquiry,” said El-Hage.

To mark the book launch, HRF president Thor Halvorssen will speak on Monday, November 7 at London’s House of Commons in a panel discussion exploring how the recent application of R2P in Libya will impact future global conflicts. The event, hosted by the Henry Jackson Society, will also feature the book’s editor Jared Genser, R2P expert Serena Sharma, and Georgetown University legal scholar Mark Vlasic. To attend please RSVP to: sarah.richard@henryjacksonsociety.org.

HRF's Center for Law and Democracy is a program of HRF that promotes legal scholarship in the areas of comparative constitutional and international law.

Contact: Javier El-Hage, Human Rights Foundation, (212) 246.8486, info@thehrf.org