Safeguarding Civilians: Delivering on the responsibility to protect in Africa

Article

In September 2005, at a meeting of the United Nations in New York, the world's leaders endorsed an international 'responsibility to protect': an obligation to act to protect civilians in the face of war crimes or genocide, where the government locally is perpetrating these abuses itself or is unable or unwilling to stop them.

In September 2005, at a meeting of the United Nations in New York, the world's leaders endorsed an international 'responsibility to protect': an obligation to act to protect civilians in the face of war crimes or genocide, where the government locally is perpetrating these abuses itself or is unable or unwilling to stop them.

Although there has been some real progress over the last six years in building support for this idea of a responsibility to protect, there is still a large gap between normative commitments endorsed at UN meetings and the actual practice of governments faced with instances of war crimes.

Indeed, the central challenge today in respect of the responsibility to protect is not normative but operational: how to actually protect civilians from mass killing, war crimes and genocide. That is the focus of this ippr report.

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