The real challenge is one of how to get global faith in a dignified and well-protected existence for everyone, rooted in all hearts and minds. This tends to entail periods of sharp confrontation with the powers that be, as the recent Arab Spring has markedly illustrated.
The UN-mandated intervention in Libya is now officially at an end. Perhaps only time will tell whether Libya turns out to have been a great case of international intervention or something rather less.
The current focus by scholars and policymakers on the role of religion in international relations is a welcome development. It’s transnational power can serve as a force for both good or ill by challenging the exclusive authority of states over their citizens, and debates over religious issues cannot be understood without taking religious beliefs into account.
Today’s BRICS leaders talk, but rarely take combined action or push for substantive joint strategies, pointing to the possibility that at least in political terms the BRICs made by Goldman Sachs (who coined the phrase) may prove to be more like stumbling blocks than the foundation stones needed to reinvigorate the UN or reshape the international system.
Although Article 38 has helped define international law as a discipline distinct from politics and international relations, it has fallen short of seeing the process through. As dynamic as society is, law needs to be one step ahead to ensure that there is a means to keep actions and omissions in check.
While the development of R2P as a concept has been the preserve of international relations theoreticians (albeit ones with large amounts of practical experience), its implementation rests on the practitioners of the day. And these practitioners deal in the world of realpolitik with all of its inconsistencies, relativities and competing national interests.
Because of the deep concern on the part of many UN member states that RtoP could give rise to a regime change agenda and the equally deep global opposition to such an agenda, it is incumbent on us to explore the relationship more deeply in order to ascertain whether there are ways of maintaining a clear distinction between RtoP and regime change without sacrificing the protection of civilians.
The problem with R2P is precisely that which rendered “Never Again!” and the Genocide Convention impotent, namely that its enforcement is conditional on the support of the permanent five members of the Security Council. Only the very naive imagine that the P5 honour Article 24.1 of the Charter and act on behalf of UN member states; each state’s respective national interest determines their position.
The UN was neither designed nor expected to be a pacifist organisation. Its origins lie in the anti-Nazi wartime military alliance amongst Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union. The all-powerful UN Security Council is the world’s duly, and only, sworn in sheriff for enforcing international law and order.
One of the most depressing, and distressing, realities we have to acknowledge has been our inability to prevent or halt the recurring horror of mass atrocity crimes.
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