ABSTRACT
When all else fails, RtoP insists that the buck stops with the UN Security Council. To paraphrase paragraph 139 of the 2005 World Summit agreement, when a state is manifestly failing to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleaning and crimes against humanity, and peaceful means have failed, the Security Council has a responsibility to use its authority to protect endangered populations by imposing measures, including the use of force if necessary. The Security Council’s subsequent affirmation of RtoP (Resolution 1674 (2006) and Resolution 1894 (2009)) implies that it accepts this special responsibility. Of course, it was profound international disagreement about the circumstances in which the use of force or other coercive measures may be used for human protection purposes generated by NATO’s 1999 intervention in Kosovo that animated the ICISS and provided the immediate impetus for the development of RtoP, though as I noted in Chapter 1 the concept itself drew on ideas that were not directly connected to the question of intervention. The ICISS, recall, was established to address a critical challenge identified by Kofi Annan. Reflecting on the controversy surrounding the Kosovo intervention, and noting the damage that the UN’s failure to act in Rwanda had done to the organization, Annan asked whether: ‘On the one hand, is it legitimate for a regional organization to use force without a UN mandate? On the other, is it permissible to let gross and systematic violations of human rights, with grave humanitarian consequences, continue unchecked?’1 The SecretaryGeneral challenged member states to avoid ‘future Kosovos’ (cases where the Security Council is deadlocked about whether to intervene to prevent humanitarian crises from worsening) and ‘future Rwandas’ (where states lack the political will to take decisive action in the face of genocide, mass murder and/or ethnic cleansing).2
