ABSTRACT
The haunting words of Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoller's moving poem about the Holocaust remind people that preventing and ending genocide is everyone's business. Standing up to genocide, and the hate, prejudice, and discrimination that gives rise to it requires solidarity, compassion, and bravery in the face of huge risk and unimaginable evil. In 2005, heads of state and government committed themselves to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle. In so doing, they agreed that all states must protect their populations from genocide and other atrocity crimes, namely war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. R2P's greatest asset is the global consensus it commands. R2P is based on the idea of responsible sovereignty, which is integral to sovereignty itself. R2P provides a clear political framework that offers both a useful guide to action and a diplomatic tool that can be used to prevent and respond to genocide.
