Harvard Human Rights Journal

HRJ CollageHRJ Symposium 2009

Responsibility to Protect

February 20, 2009
Sheraton Commander
The event is open to the public.

Presented by the Harvard Human Rights Journal
With generous support from Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP

The purpose of this symposium is to expose students to the Responsibility to Protect doctrine—its historical and current development, its implications for the international order and for the international human rights field.
If you have any questions, contact kyan(at)jd10.law.harvard.edu

Featuring a keynote address by Edward C. Luck, UN Special Adviser for R2P

Registration

What is R2P?

Symposium Schedule

Speakers

 

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Please visit our REGISTRATION PAGE to let us know you will be attending. The event is free. Registration is open until Wednesday February 18th at midnight. The event is open to the public.

 

What is R2P?

HRJThe Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a recently developed doctrine concerning a state's and the international community’s responsibility to protect peoples against genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Important implications have been raised for the impact on humanitarian interventions and the doctrine of state sovereignty.

R2P, first put forth by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, has received great praise and criticism related to its rhetoric and efficacy. The subsequent High Level Task Force report and former Secretary General Kofi Annan’s reports have put into question the evolution of the responsibility to protect as an emerging legal norm. And the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document has fostered further praise and criticism with the international embrace of what some have term “R2P lite.”

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon asked Special Advisor Edward Luck to provide a report by the end of 2008 to discuss how R2P should be operationalized. His report is to be debated at the start of this year in the UN General Assembly so we hope to offer the first public dialogue concerning these recent developments. In addition to a keynote address by Edward Luck, the symposium will include two panel discussions addressing the themes of Human Rights and the Responsibility to Protect and Implications for the International Order.

Report of the Secretary-General on "Implementing the Responsibility to Protect" (January 12, 2009)
R2PCS Advocacy Group's Description of R2P
Wikipedia Entry on R2P
Global Center for R2P Primer

 

Symposium Schedule

12:00 – 1:00 pm

R2P Primer Lunch with Sharanjeet Parmar
Mount Vernon Room, Sheraton Commander

 

Over lunch, Sharanjeet Parmar, HLS Human Rights Program Clinical Advocacy Fellow will provide students with a general background on the history of the responsibility to protect doctrine to prepare them with the relevant background to engage with the topic over the course of the symposium.

1:00 – 2:30 pm

Keynote Address by Dr. Edward Luck
George Washington Ballroom, Sheraton Commander

 

Dr. Edward Luck, Special Adviser at the Assistant Secretary-General Level, Senior Vice President and Director of Studies, International Peace Institute, and Professor, Columbia University

2:30 – 2:45 pm

Coffee/Tea Break

2:45 – 4:15 pm

Panel: R2P and Implications for the International Order
George Washington Ballroom, Sheraton Commander

 

 This panel will represent a variety of perspectives on the implications of an operationalized responsibility to protect and its potential development. Possible topics include: the position of the incoming US State Department, critiques from the developing world, and efficacy/inefficacy of R2P mechanisms.

4:15 – 4:30 pm

Coffee/Tea Break

4:30 – 6:00 pm

Panel: R2P and Human Rights
George Washington Ballroom, Sheraton Commander

 

This panel will address the implications for the human rights field of an operational responsibility to protect. Possible topics include: opportunities for intersection between R2P and human rights advocacy, limitations of R2P in affecting human rights, and potential tensions between R2P and human rights.

6:00 – 7:00 pm

Wine and Cheese Reception
Pound 335, Harvard Law School

 

Speakers

Keynote:

Edward C. Luck
HRJSpecial Adviser at the Assistant Secretary-General level, Senior Vice President and Director of Studies, International Peace Institute, and Professor, Columbia University

R2P Primer Speaker:

Sharanjeet Parmar
HLS Human Rights Program Clinical Advocacy Fellow

Panel: R2P and Implications for the International Order

Balakrishnan Rajagopal
Ford International Associate Professor of Law and Development
International Development Group, Massachusetts Institute for Technology

W. Andy Knight
Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science and Executive Director, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
University of Alberta

Mary Ellen O’Connell
Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law
Notre Dame Law School

Ramesh Thakur
Distinguished Fellow, Center International Governance Innovation, University of Waterloo, and ICISS Commissioner

Panel: R2P and Human Rights

HRJSheri P. Rosenberg
Director, Program in Holocaust and Human Rights Studies
Cardozo School of Law 

Roberta Cohen
Senior Adviser to the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement
Senior Adviser to the Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons

Hurst Hannum
Professor of Law and Codirector, Center for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution
The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

Sarah Sewall
Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government

 

If you have any questions, contact kyan(at)jd10.law.harvard.edu
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