Responsibility To Protect or License To Kill

Responsibility To Protect, or R2P is the new international security protocol for addressing the failure to prevent and stop genocides, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. It is currently being debated at the UN general assembly. Why debating, one may ask, shouldn't the responsibility to prevent crime against humanity be endorsed universally? If you look under the hood, you may find this is a very messy issue.

Four distinguished intellectuals, including Noam Chomsky lead the open debate in front of the UN general assembly on July 23rd, 2009. The discussion was at length, but the essence is that such protocol, if not properly defined and implemented, would instead give the powerful western world not only the responsibility to protect but the license to kill. A great number of example was given through out the history that such "responsibility to protect or to free" has lead to great tragedies, from the colonization, to slavery, to the ethnic cleansing of the American Indians, and to the recent Iraq and Afghanistan war. If this was to be adopted as the international security protocol used by the UN, then the implementation must be designed carefully. For example, if it was up to the UN Security Console to decide weather such responsibility to protect is to be carried out, then how does this sanction apply to the 5 nations in the Security Console (because of the Vito right that each nation have)? How does one define the terms crime against humanity? There are thousands of children starving to death in South Africa every day, and they are not being helped by any powerful nation, how is that not crime against humanity itself? Also, although not mentioned in the debate, if it is a "responsibility", then what happens if we fail such responsibility? Responsibility is more than Right, and it must have consequences if fail to comply. All in all, although the idealism behind this can be agreed by all, we need to look closely to exam how to use it wisely to not fail ourselves once again.

You can find Chomsky's notes here, http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20090723.htm

You can watch the whole video here, http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/ga/63/2009/ga090723am.rm