The International Institute for Strategic Studies invites you to the London launch of, and a discussion on, Gareth Evans’s new book on “the responsibility to protect”. This is the concept initiated in 2001 by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, and adopted by the UN in 2005, following the failure of earlier rallying cries like “humanitarian intervention” to generate an effective consensual international response to mass atrocity crimes in Rwanda, Bosnia and elsewhere.
In his book Evans argues that the primary responsibility for protecting its own people from mass atrocity crimes lies with the state itself, but state sovereignty implies responsibility, not a license to kill. When a state is unwilling or unable to halt or avert such crimes, the wider international community then has a collective responsibility to take action. R2P was unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit. But many misunderstandings persist about its scope and limits.
Speakers:
Gareth Evans
President, International Crisis Group; Co-Chair, International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2001); former Foreign Minister of Australia
Lord Patten of Barnes
Co-Chair, International Crisis Group; Chancellor, Oxford University; former European Commissioner for External Relations and Governor of Hong Kong
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
Former UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Special Representative for Cyprus, and Member of the UN High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change (2004)
This meeting will be chaired by Dr Dana Allin, Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Affairs,and will take place on the Fifth Floor at Arundel House, 13-15 Arundel Street, Temple Place, London WC2R 3DX.
If you would like to attend, please RSVP Clara Catherall on catherall@iiss.org or tel: 020 7395 9156
A stream of the discussion and the Q&A session is available.
