About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

14 Global Governance 135 (2008)
Conflict Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect

handle is hein.journals/glogo14 and id is 143 raw text is: Global Governance 14 (2008), 135-156 Conflict Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect Alex J. Bellamy Although the International Commission on Intervention and State Sover- eignty identified the responsibility to prevent as the single most important aspect of its report The Responsibility to Protect, most scholarly and polit- ical attention has been given to the concept's reaction component rather than to its prevention component. This article aims to correct this imbal- ance by examining progress with, changes to, and attitudes toward the responsibility to prevent since the publication of the commission's report in 2001. It seeks to explain the relative neglect of prevention in debates about The Responsibility to Protect, arguing that the answer can be found in a combination of doubts about how wide the definition of prevention should be, political concerns raised by the use of prevention in the war on terrorism, and practical concerns about the appropriate institutional locus for responsibility. The article moves on to identify some basic principles that might help advance the responsibility to prevent. KEYWORDS: respon- sibility to protect, conflict prevention, UN, institutions, war. A ccording to the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), the Responsibility to Protect concept com- /prises three responsibilities relating to deadly conflict and other human-made catastrophes: to prevent, to react, and to rebuild. I The respon- sibility to react has received significant political and scholarly attention and has dominated debates about the adoption of the responsibility-to-protect principle by the UN General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit.2 Like- wise, the responsibility to rebuild has been accompanied by renewed interest in questions of justice after war (the so-called jus post bellum) and was in- stitutionalized by the World Summit through the creation of the UN's Peace- building Commission. Despite being described as the single most important dimension of the responsibility to protect, the responsibility to prevent has been relatively neglected.3 In the World Summit's Outcome Document, the UN's commitment to conflict prevention was kept separate from its commit- ment to the Responsibility to Protect, and states committed only to help es- tablish an early warning capability for the UN and to support the secre- tary-general's Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide.4 The call of the ICISS for measures to centralize preventive efforts, tackle the root causes of conflict, and enhance direct prevention capabilities was over- looked in favor of this focus on early warning.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most