
Internally displaced people in Darfur continue to live in camps, eight years after the conflict broke out - AP
by Jonathan Hutson
co-authored with Kyle Matthews
Ending genocide and other mass atrocities is a noble goal not yet realized, yet there is reason for hope.
In 2001, thanks to the leadership of Canada, a new international security and human rights doctrine was introduced. Known as the Responsibility to Protect, in 2005 all 192 countries seated at the United Nations endorsed the principle that should a country be unwilling or unable to protect its citizens from genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or ethnic cleansing, then the international community must take action.
In the 10 years since the R2P doctrine came into existence, the world has suffered instances of grave, foreseeable, and preventable mass atrocities. Some of these instances amounted to crimes against humanity, and even genocide. The political will to mount a robust protection mission was absent in the case of Darfur, where the government of Sudan killed hundreds of thousands of its own civilians. As many scholars and activists note, Darfur was R2P’s first test, and the first failure of the international community to implement the new norm to protect civilians. Continue reading →