US Approves UN Use Of Force To Protect Civilians In Conflict

[Purveyor]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The United States is announcing its support for a set of principles that give a green light for U.N. peacekeeping troops and police to use force to protect civilians in armed conflicts.

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power told a high-level U.N. meeting Wednesday focusing on the responsibility to protect civilians that the United States was "proud" and "humbled" to join 28 other countries that have pledged to abide by the 18 pledges.

U.N. peacekeepers from these 29 countries are now required to act in cases where civilians are in danger.

"The Kigali Principles are designed to make sure that civilians are not abandoned by the international community again," she said, recalling how U.N. peacekeepers left Rwanda before the 1994 genocide and Srebrenica before the 1995 massacre.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/UN_UNITED_NATIONS_PROTECTING_CIVILIANS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-05-11-18-24-52

[newthinking]

1. "Responsibility to protect" will become a tool. While a good concept the framework

to keep it from being used to push regime change and cause civil wars is not in place.

[CanadaexPat]

2. No kidding. That was Power's argument for getting

involved in Libya.

[Redwoods Red]

3. Ah, the humanitarian hawks. How's that whole Libya thing working out?

[pampango]

4. "Responsibility-to-protect" civilians has been UN policy since 2005. Not perfect but better than

a collective "responsibility-to-ignore" abuses against civilians or to rely on individual countries to "protect" civilians in other countries when, where and how it sees fit.

That each individual state has the primary responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. And it is also a responsibility for prevention of these crimes

That the international community should encourage or assist states to exercise this responsibility.

The international community has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means to help protect populations threatened by these crimes. When a state manifestly fails in its protection responsibilities, and peaceful means are inadequate, the international community must take stronger measures, including collective use of force authorized by the Security Council under Chapter VII.

http://responsibilitytoprotect.org/index.php/about-rtop/learn-about-rtop

R2P has been invoked in 18 countries since 2005, including Gaza, Zimbabwe, Burma, Iraq and Kyrgyzstan.

[ManiacJoe]

5. I am a firm believer in truth in labeling.

If the "peace keepers" are not allowed to keep the peace, the UN should be honest in using the "observer" label.