The Responsibility to Protect: The Dream and the Reality

The Responsibility to Protect fifteen years on from the World Summit

About this Event

Gareth Evans takes stock of the extent to which R2P has both met and fallen short of the dreams of its founders since its endorsement by the 2005 World Summit. As an effective reactive counter-force to atrocity crimes already under way, R2P’s record has been disappointing. But as an institutional catalyst and preventive mechanism it has been generally successful, and as a normative force it has been, and remains, very influential.

Speaker

Gareth Evans is Distinguished Honorary Professor at the Australian National University, where he was Chancellor from 2010–19. He was a member of the Australian Parliament for twenty-one years, and a Cabinet Minister for thirteen, including as Foreign Minister from 1988–96. After leaving politics, he was President of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group from 2000–09. He co-chaired the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2000–01), which initiated the ‘responsibility to protect’ concept, and is chair of the New York-based International Advisory Board of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. He has written or edited thirteen books, including The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All. (Brookings Institution Press, 2008).

About ECR2P and Annual Lecture

The European Centre for the Responsibility to Protect is dedicated to advancing the Responsibility to Protect principle through research, education, training and policy dialogue. Our members have been at the forefront of theoretical and policy debates related to the R2P. The Annual Lecture series began in 2016 and has included world leading speakers such as Alex Bellamy, Ivan Simonovic, Jennifer Welsh and Karen Smith. In 2020, we are delighted to announce that Gareth Evans will present 'The Responsibility to Protect: The Dream and the Reality'.

Register now via Eventbrite.