Relevant Course Materials:

Learning Materials:Module 9 - Political Globalization, Part 2

Readings:Chapter 4 (Steger); and "International Politics" (MacLean & Wood)

Videos:"A Brief History of the Responsibility to Protect" (Foreign Policy Association); and "Interview: Romeo Dallaire on Rwanda and R2P" (The Hague Institution)

Overview:

Learning Outcomes:Explain the phenomenon of global governance with reference to specific international actors and institutions; and Assess the impact of globalization upon global peace and security.

In 2006, the UN Security Council affirmed that despite sovereignty and the traditional right of states to non-interference in their domestic affairs, all states have a collective international responsibility to protect (R2P) the people of a country if genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity are involved. However, since this decision, heated debate and controversy have surrounded the R2P and whether, when and how the international community and Security Council should apply it to intervene in humanitarian crises. Indeed, the tension between realism (sovereignty) and liberal internationalism (intervention) is never easily resolved and has plagued conflicts and genocides such as Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo in the past, and Syria, Iraq, Myanmar and China in the present.

Instructions:

Discussion #4 invites you to reflect on debates surrounding the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, and commitments to humanitarian intervention more broadly speaking.When the government of a sovereign state turns its power against its own people, doyou think the international community should intervene and invoke the R2P? Why or why not? What are some of the obstacles that prevent states and the international community from successfully addressing humanitarian problems? What are some of the opportunities for collective global action? Be sure to use specific historical examples to clarify your ideas.