The collective protection of human rights

R2P- sovereignty AND intervention

• International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) Report in 2001

• Sovereignty means responsibility• If states fail, the responsibility passes to the

community of states • UN World Summit Outome Document (2005)– «Responsibility to Protect Populations from

Genocide, War Crimes, Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity»

R2P

• When? national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their population

• Who? The international community, through the United Nations

• How? collective action, timely and decisive, through the Security Council,… on a case-by-case basis.

Genocide• The Genocide Convention (1948) of the UN define genocide as:• any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole

or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:• (a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Crimes against Humanity

• murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war; or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds

Ethnic cleansing

• ‘purifying’ an area ethnically by using force or intimidation to remove targeted persons or a given group from the area.

War Crimes

• Breaches of the Geneva Conventions including but not limited to

• Directing attacks against civilians• Directing attacks against humanitarian

workers or UN peacekeepers• Settlement of occupied territory• Using civilians as shields

Refugees’ Human Rights

Whose rights?• UDHR Article 14: “Everyone has the right to seek and

to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution”• According to 1951 UN Convention relating to the

status of refugees:• A Refugee is someone: • owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of – race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, 

• is outside the country of his nationality, • and cannot or will not return there because there is a fear of persecution

What rights?

Refugee rights include:• protection from being forcibly returned to a

country where they would be at risk of persecution (non-refoulement).

• protection from discrimination• protection from penalties for illegal entry• the right to work, housing and education• the right to freedom of movement• the right to identity and travel documents

• What are the limitations to the freedom of expression according to the ICCPR? Do you agree with these limitations?

OR• How is genocide defined? Is it a ‘useful’

definition? (Define useful as well)