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Again and again, the words
"never again" have failed to deliver security to populations at risk of
grave atrocities. The international community stood aside while some of
the world's most vulnerable populations – in Cambodia,
Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur, to name a few – fell victim to
most heinous crimes against humanity.
There is growing acceptance
that the international community not only should but must act when the
state itself is either incapable of protecting, or itself inflicting
harm on, its populations. At the 2005 World Summit, governments
accepted a new international norm, the Responsibility to Protect, which
seeks to hold all states accountable to populations at risk of being
attacked, forcibly displaced, or killed.
The Global Centre for the
Responsibility to Protect has been created by key supporters from
government, NGOs, and academia to ensure that this R2P doctrine is
understood and put into practice by governments and at the United
Nations. Its mission is to promote and catalyze international action to
help countries to prevent or halt mass atrocities. The Global Centre is
housed at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at The
CUNY Graduate Center.
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