The ninth report of the United Nations Secretary-General on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) highlights the importance of strengthening accountability for the implementation of R2P and the prevention of mass atrocity crimes. This is the first report on R2P by the new Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, and it highlights how R2P fits within his wider prevention agenda.

The report asserts that a new approach to international peace and security, including atrocity prevention, is needed, and outlines practical steps that can be taken by member states, intergovernmental bodies and the UN system to bolster the prevention of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

In conclusion, the report the Secretary-General outlines the steps the United Nations will take to uphold R2P: fully include atrocity prevention in the UN’s integrated prevention platform; provide stronger evidence-based insight into the structural and operational measures that can be undertaken to prevent atrocities and support the provision of policy guidance for practitioners through the Special Advisers on the Prevention of Genocide and R2P; improve the activities and capacity of UN entities to contribute more effectively to mass atrocity prevention and; continue to provide honest assessments to member states on collective efforts to implement the Responsibility to Protect.

The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect has published a summary of the 2017 report available here: Mobilizing collective action: The next decade for the Responsibility to Protect