Pligten til at beskytte befolkninger fra overgreb er ikke kun et spørgsmål om at reagere i 11. time, men om at forebygge begivenhederne, sagde FNs generalsekretær i Generalforsamlingen onsdag.
NEW YORK, 11 September 2013 (UN News Centre): Countries must remain committed to protecting populations from mass atrocities, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told an informal dialogue in the General Assembly today, stressing this does not only entail acting in the face of violence, but also focusing on conflict prevention.
“Let us […] remember that the responsibility to protect seeks not only to protect populations at the eleventh hour but, first and foremost, to prevent crises from erupting at all,” Mr. Ban said in his remarks at to the General Assembly’s Informal Interactive Dialogue and panel discussion on “The Responsibility to protect: State Responsibility and Prevention.”
“Prevention may sound abstract, but it is very concrete and specific. It means, among many things, that States translate obligations and standards set out in international law, notably international humanitarian and human rights law, into policies, programmes, laws and institutions that protect and empower their people,” Mr. Ban said.
The Syrian Conflict
Mr. Ban also addressed the issue of the Syrian conflict, saying it illustrates the challenges that States continue to face, in spite of efforts by the international community to end the violence and push for a political solution.
“Many observers regard the international community’s divisions and immobility as a failure of the responsibility to protect. But this critique misses the mark. The concept itself is not to blame,” Mr. Ban said.
Conflict is a process
In his remarks, Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson underlined that States must acknowledge that atrocity crimes are processes, not single events, which requires conflict prevention to be a continuous endeavour.
“It starts with Member States taking decisive steps to fulfil their human rights obligations, and regional actors and international institutions to assist them in building societies based on the rule of law,” he said. “We pay an enormous price for waiting for conflicts to get worse.”
Sometimes known as ‘R2P,’ the principle of the responsibility to protect holds States responsible for shielding their own populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and related crimes against humanity and requires the international community to step in if this obligation is not met.
