The United States government took the lead, and has implemented three of the report’s major recommendations. It analyzed past responses to mass atrocities and provided a set of recommendations for both the Canadian and American context, including making the prevention of mass atrocities a national security priority, the appointment of a senior member of cabinet for the prevention of mass atrocities, the creation of an interdepartmental coordinating office for the prevention of mass atrocities and an increase of Canada’s diplomatic and development presence in fragile states. Two years ago, the Montreal Institute of Genocide Studies and Human Rights published a report entitled, Mobilizing the Will to Intervene. Canadian institutions already have done much of the research in this area, and the United States has already taken the leadership in improving its institutional capabilities for prevention. This is not achieved by increasing the level of rhetoric and the adoption of empty slogans it is done through careful and deliberate action.
In practice, this means that the UN and its member states need to build their capacity to identify mass atrocities and their precipitating factors, and develop the tools necessary to address them before a situation such as Syria occurs.įor Canada, that means developing a prevention policy framework and the institutional capability to implement it. It means using all measures, from peaceful to coercive, local, regional and international, to protect civilians. Those who are unfamiliar with the actual text of the Canadian report on R2P, or the various UN reports on the subject, assume that timely and decisive action is tantamount to military action. What R2P demands is that the international community assist states in fulfilling their responsibility to protect through the promotion of human security and that if a state fails, or is failing, in its responsibility, that the international community respond in a timely and decisive fashion to protect the populations at risk. Quite the opposite: R2P was designed with the specific intention of moving away from humanitarian intervention, which is focused solely on the use of force, by promoting prevention. Similarly, R2P is not only about military intervention. Human security is not focused only on genocide and mass atrocities it deals with armed conflict and intervention, human rights and good governance, resources and the environment, and even organized crime. R2P, a Canadian-led initiative, emerged from the human security framework, which places the protection of human rights at the centre of international peace and security. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.