At Denver dinner, U.N. chief calls for human-rights protections

By Bruce Finley
The Denver Post

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Wednesday said the "responsibility to protect" civilians from war crimes has become an operational basis for intervening in crises worldwide and urged expanded efforts to protect people.

In an interview before attending the annual University of Denver Korbel Dinner, Ban also said that "R2P" interventions — which in Libya and Ivory Coast involved military force — must include better post-conflict work to bring the rule of law. He was in Denver to accept a DU award and meet with sustainable-energy innovators.

"We have to protect human rights," he said. "We have to lift millions and millions of people whose human rights are abused and not properly protected."

The R2P concept emerged at the 2005 U.N. World Summit and obligates the international community to intervene when a nation fails or is unwilling to protect its people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In 2009, Ban released a report, "Implementing the Responsibility to Protect," and has made this a hallmark of his tenure.

Critics have questioned its application in Libya, where China and Russia agreed to a NATO-led military intervention to protect civilians, which later appeared to some as aimed more at toppling Moammar Khadafy's regime.

Russia and China oppose a possible intervention in Syria. Ban said he has deployed a team to assess humanitarian consequences of Syria's government crackdown on demonstrators.

"My priority is to translate this concept and principle into reality, into action," Ban said. "We will have to expand it to all the cases of human-rights violations. We have seen terrible human-rights violations, killing of people in Libya and in Syria."

Beyond initial intervention to protect civilians, outside powers must do more post-crisis planning to help new governments establish the rule of law, he said. "This is part of R2P — establishing accountability processes and transitional justice systems."


(2011-8-25/denverpost.com)