Abstract:In his 2012 report on the implementation of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle, ᴜɴ Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon observed that: ‘As paragraph 139 of the World Summit Outcome highlighted, hu...In his 2012 report on the implementation of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle, ᴜɴ Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon observed that: ‘As paragraph 139 of the World Summit Outcome highlighted, humanitarian action plays a critical role in protecting populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity’. He continued, ‘Humanitarian agencies can help to protect populations and shield them from some of the worst effects of displacement. As such, humanitarian action is a critically important part of any “timely and decisive” response’. The contribution of humanitarian action to the protection of populations from genocide and other atrocity crimes was not, however, without its challenges and problems. The Secretary-General insisted that ‘humanitarian action must never be used as a substitute for political action’ and implored that ‘it must also be understood that humanitarian action depends upon humanitarian space. To defend humanitarian space, the United Nations and the international community must respect the humanitarian principles of neutrality, independence, humanity and impartiality’. This Special Issue of Global Responsibility to Protect takes these observations as its starting point – that humanitarian action contributes to the protection of populations from genocide and mass atrocities but that the nature of this relationship is complex and fraught with practical, ethical and strategic problems and challenges...Read More
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-06-12
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 2
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