Responsibility to Protect and the International Community’s Limitations

In a seminal article in The Economist, the former United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG) Kofi Annan discussed issues that remain controversial and difficult to answer and that allude to the fundamental problems of “humanitarian intervention” or intervention for humanitarian purposes (including military interventions to stop atrocities). Questions like, “Is it legitimate for a regional organization to use force without a UN mandate?” and “Is it permissible to let gross and systematic violations of human rights, with grave humanitarian consequences, continue unchecked?” drew attention to the (yet) unresolved question of “the inability of the international community to reconcile these two compelling interests.” More…