Product Description

After the Holocaust, the world vowed it would 'never again!' permit such mass atrocity crimes, yet many have since gone unchecked, from the killing fields of Cambodia to the machetes of Rwanda to the ongoing nightmare in Darfur. Gareth Evans, president of the International Crisis Group, explains this lack of government action. In a more hopeful vein, however, he also shows how the emergence of a new international norm can protect the peoples of the world from mass crimes.The Responsibility to Protect (or R2P) concept was born in 2001 and embraced at the UN World Summit in 2005. The heart of this new international norm is the belief that if sovereign governments fail to protect their own people from genocide, ethnic cleansing, or other major crimes against humanity, then the wider international community must take whatever action is appropriate. The new norm emphasizes assistance and prevention, not coercion, but it also accepts that it is sometimes right to fight. The bottom line is that the world cannot just stand by. 'Never again' is still more a hope than a promise, however. The 2005 consensus remains politically fragile, with many developing states worrying that R2P goes too far or is too easily capable of misuse by major powers. Political will must be solidified, and effective institutional capacity must be created.This important book meets these challenges head on, clarifying misunderstandings about the new norm's scope and limits and spelling out the steps needed to make R2P work in practice. Evans shows how Responsibility to Protect is far better equipped to end mass atrocity crimes than is 'the right to intervene' or any other 'humanitarian intervention' doctrine of the past. The book is enlivened throughout by real-world examples, analyses of current events, and assessments drawn from the author's own vast experience.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #129477 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 349 pages

About the Author
Gareth Evans is president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, a leading international nongovernmental organization advising on conflict prevention and resolution. He came to ICG in 2000, after eight years as Australia's foreign minister. No one could be more qualified to write this book. Evans co-chaired the Canadian-sponsored International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty that initiated the Responsibility to Protect idea in 2001, and he was a member of the UN Secretary General's High Level Panel that in 2004 proposed its adoption by theWorld Summit. He won the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order for his 1994 Foreign Policy article,"Cooperative Security and Intra-State Conflict."

Customer Reviews

Human rights
In this age when, at last, dictators are being challenged and some even taken for trial at The Hague, we must still ask why so much oppression remains in the world.

Former Australian foreign minister, Gareth Evans, goes beyond that question and asks: "What if we intervened BEFORE these tyrants were able to slaughter people?"

If that seems obvious to most, it sends shudders through toothless organisations like the UN, Commonwealth, African Union, OAS, ASEAN etc.

But Evans does not flinch. He pushes the case that humanity has a duty -- a sacred obligation -- not just to arrest thugs when they have committed genocide, but to STOP them before they can do their Cambodia or Rwanda on an unarmed population.

Sadly the world of human rights is polarised by politics, and double standards are rife. There are those who see Cuba as a brave kid who blew raspberries at the school bully, ignoring the fact that freedom of speech is suppressed on the island, opposition parties are banned and thousands have fled to the USA. Successive leaders in Washington condemned Castro, but held quiet on worse abuse in "friendly" states like Haiti or El Salvador. Others slam Israel while ignoring repression in Saudi Arabia or Yemen.

Gareth Evans will have none of this. In his world, if you overstep the line you should be held to account.

This single honesty is what makes the book so valuable and the author lays out in accessible language the manner (and mechanics) by which we could, and should, protect the weak.

In this he has created a work that deserves to be on the bookshelf of every person who has shuddered at the news from Kosovo, Darfur, Zimbabwe or Afghanistan.

Geoff Hill
Journalist and Author
Johannesburg