International Law and Human Security Projects

The Simons Forum on the Responsibility to Protect: Re-Energizing the Key Players was convened by The Simons Foundation under the auspices of the Simons Visiting Chair in International Law and Human Security at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, 22-24 March 2017.

W2I is a crucial initiative pursuing the prevention of genocide and other crimes against humanity. After Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur, genocide experts understand that pressuring political leaders to stop crimes against humanity before they become genocides has been ineffective. We know what is happening and early warnings are sounded, but governments are slow to react and intervene effectively.

The so-called “right of humanitarian intervention” has been one of the most controversial foreign policy issues of the last decade – both when intervention has happened, as in Kosovo, and when it has failed to happen, as in Rwanda.

Project Ploughshares' work on this issue began with a major bibliographic study, Humanitarian Intervention: A Review of Literature. A series of seminars and roundtables explored the ethical and implementation challenges. Project Ploughshares has been especially engaged in the African debate through a series of consultations carried out in East, West, and Southern Africa by Project Ploughshares in cooperation with the Africa Peace Forum, the African Women’s Development and Communication Network, and the Africa Institute of South Africa. The subsequent report, The Responsibility to Protect: East, West, and Southern African Perspectives on Preventing and Responding to Humanitarian Crises, led to a significant set of African-generated recommendations.

UNEPS is being developed by an international team of security experts and civil society leaders as a standing, individually recruited, gender mainstreamed, rapid response capacity under a unified UN authority that can respond effectively to outbreaks of genocide, crimes against humanity or other humanitarian disasters anywhere in the world.

Convened by The Simons Foundation, Simon Fraser University (SFU) Centre for Dialogue, and the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) at Concordia University.