[Jean Bricmont teaches physics in Belgium and is a member of the Brussels Tribunal. His new book, Humanitarian Imperialism, is published by Monthly Review Press.]
On July 23, a debate concerning the Responsibility to Protect took place in front of the General Asssembly of the United Nations. The responsibility to protect (R2P) is a notion agreed to by world leaders in 2005, that holds States responsible for shielding their own populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and related crimes against humanity, requiring the international community to step in if this obligation is not met. This last point is suspected to be related to the right of humanitarian intervention » and is the source of many debates.The discussion was initiated by General Assembly President Miguel DEscoto (from Nicaragua) and gathered Noam Chomsky, Gareth Evans, a supporter of R2P, former Foreign Minister of Australia and, until recently, president of the International Crisis Group, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a prominent African writer and defender of human rights, and myself. Here is the text of my speech
I would like, in this talk, to challenge the intellectual assumptions underlying the notion and the rhetoric of R2P. In a nutshell, my thesis will be that the main obstacle to the implementation of a genuine R2P are precisely the policies and the attitudes of the countries that are most enthusiastic about this doctrine, namely the Western countries, and in particular the US.
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