Building a genocide monitoring and alert system is one of 16 top ideas shortlisted by Google’s ‘10 to the 100‘ initiative, after reviewing more than 150,000 ideas submitted by people in 172 countries. Google will give $10 million to organisations in the best position to help implement the five ideas that receive the most votes by Thursday [...]
In the video below, Francis Deng, the respected Sudanese scholar and diplomat who is UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, explains how he interprets his challenging job description. (”Of course I felt honoured, but I soon began to ask myself, what have I got myself into?”)
He emphasises the importance [...]
Three years after saying “We accept that responsibility”, the United Nations General Assembly will soon debate how to put ‘the Responsibility to Protect‘ into practice. How do we know this? Because UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon plans to present to the General Assembly some proposals on the subject by the end of 2008.
Forget about UN procedures, complicated politics and differing [...]
Ramesh Thakur - one of the original R2P commissioners, is critical of suggestions to apply R2P to natural disasters.
He admits that the original report identified ‘overwhelming natural or environmental catastrophes, where the state concerned is either unwilling or unable to cope, and significant loss of life is occurring or threatened‘ as among the conscience-shocking situations [...]
In The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier advocated military intervention to expel aggressors, maintain post-conflict peace and prevent coups. The Eldis Conflict & Security Blog discusses some responses:
“Is it wise to intervene in conflict? Should foreign governments and international institutions take immediate action to avert possible civilian casualties? Or is the priority to ensure ‘stability’ (which [...]