27 August 2008

GPPi contributes to discussion on the "Responsibility to Protect"

GPPi Associate Director Thorsten Benner gave a presentation on the “Responsibility to Protect: Failing States and the International Community” at the 2008 summer academy of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation on 23 August 2008.

The week-long summer academy took place in Geisenheim, Rheingau and brought together more than 80 scholarship recipients of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation for a discussion on “Democracy and Good Governance in the 21st century”. Thorsten Benner’s contribution focused on three aspects of the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P): conceptual foundations, capacity and political context. He stressed that the 2005 World Summit adopted a specific conceptual understanding of the R2P as referring to the state's duty to protect their populations against genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. It is only in these four instances that the “international community” is called to take action if a state fails to deliver on its duty to protect.

In terms of capacity, Benner urged greater investments into early warning, prevention and mediation capacities. In addition, he urged countries to rethink their approach in terms of providing soldiers and equipment for “coercive protection missions” such as the one in Darfur. He also stressed the changing political context for the Responsibility to Protect. The situation today is different from the situation from 1999-2005 that saw the global promotion and adoption of the concept. This is due to a confluence of several factors including the relative rise of countries advocating a very restrictive understanding of sovereignty, the loss of credibility of the West as well as the experience that delivering on the R2P means engaging in costly and lengthy engagements in complex conflicts for which domestic publics have little stamina in the long run.

Referring to Gary Bass’ recent work on the history of humanitarian intervention, Thorsten Benner stressed that any intervention needs to based on both humility and prudence. At the same time it is important to recall Samantha Power’s observation that the fight for action against crimes against humanity and mass atrocities is won and lost at home in liberal democratic states. He pointed out that Germany had a particular responsibility in this regard: to exercise prudence in the use of military power abroad and at the same to resolutely mobilize against allowing crimes against humanity to take place.

For more information, please contact Thorsten Benner.

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