The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine has failed to build an international consensus for action to protect civilians in Syria. Worse, R2P’s implicit support for military action without UN authorization has contributed to the UN’s paralysis. A contribution to the openGlobalRights debate, R2P
Syria shows the difficulty of translating Responsibility to Protect (R2P) into action, but we must if R2P is to be more than a fancy acronym. But any military intervention must be linked to dialogue towards a political solution, and if such action proceeds without UN authorization it risks further
Can a military tiptoe onto a continent? Via a hush-hush version of mission creep, the Pentagon and AFRICOM are turning Africa into a battlefield of the future.
The war in Syria is illegal. If a criminal had poisoned someone, our concern would be how to protect the public from future poisonings and how to arrest the criminal and bring him (or her) before a court of law. And civil society needs to be directly involved in the talks.
Reflecting on the life and work of the political philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain, who died last month, Kathleen B Jones writes of a friendship and thirty-year collegial exchange of ideas on subjects including just war, same sex marriage, and the limits of politics.
“Quem define o conceito de direitos humanos?” Stephen Hopgood pergunta. A resposta virá de um novo diálogo Norte-Sul que, partindo dos fundamentos de história eurocêntrica dominante, poderia recuperar o potencial emancipatório de tradiçāo dos direitos humanos.
In the United Kingdom a tendency that reached its nadir with the concept of ‘The Big Society’, can be seen in the extent to which ‘participation’, whether in the affairs of the community, the city or the nation, has come to be considered a responsibility of citizens.
