Critical Analysis: R2P – Whose responsibility is it?

On April 14, 2014 the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls began trending on Twitter as the abduction of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls in Chibok flooded news outlets around the world.  The Islamist group Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, and, with the exception of a few victims who have since escaped, the majority of the girls whereabouts are … Read more

Critical Analysis: Protecting refugees in the midst of war

In the early days of April, the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) pushed closer to the center of Damascus, the Syrian capital, than they had been able to before.  They did this by seizing the majority of the Al-Yarmouk camp, a large refugee district in the southern part of the city.  The camp had once … Read more

Critical Analysis: Libya’s Lessons for the Responsibility to Protect

As the dust from the armed intervention in Libya settles, the dangers of outright regime change are laid bare.  This has brought about a certain amount of what might be called buyer’s remorse on the part of organizations and governments previously supportive of the humanitarian intervention in Libya.  One of the main problems of regime … Read more

Long-Term International and US Foreign Policy Implications of the Arab Spring

Barack Obama & the Arab Spring

Panalists Dr. Paul Williams, a Professor at American University, Lt. Col. Rachel VanLandingham of the United States Air Force, and Dr. Robert Hazan, a Professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver discussed the international and U.S. policy implications of the Arab Spring in a late afternoon panel of the Sutton Colloquium.  Dr. Williams started off … Read more

Ed Luck is Wrong When He Says that R2P is Purely Political

Edward Luck

Edward C. Luck, United Nations Assistant Secretary General, spoke at the Sutton Colloquium about the responsibility to protect and the effect of the Arab Spring on R2P.  A central theme of Professor Luck’s discourse was that R2P is a political, as opposed to a legal, concept.  With all due respect to Professor Luck, whose work’s … Read more

Libya and the “Responsibility to Protect”

Libyans celebrate their freedom

The recent uprisings which toppled Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt spread fast throughout the Middle East and North Africa.  They overtook Libya, as well.  Inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, protesters and demonstrators filled the streets in several Libyan cities.  Qaddafi called those opposing his brutally repressive regime, “cockroaches” and … Read more