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The Responsibility to Protect Darfur: The UN Should Send a Peacekeeping Force to Darfur – Even without Sudan’s Consent

William G. ONeill
WGO
William G. ONeill Director, Conflict Prevention Program, Social Science Research Council

September 28, 2006

The UN Security Council’s recent passage of a resolution to establish a UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur could mark an important break with the past, one largely overlooked in the commentary following the resolution’s adoption. Most news stories and analyses have focused on whether the government of Sudan’s “consent” is required before any UN troops may enter Darfur.

Little noticed, however, is the resolution’s reference to paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 United Nations World Summit outcome document. These paragraphs describe what is known as the “responsibility to protect,” which world leaders at last year’s UN General Assembly unanimously endorsed.

The responsibility to protect means that if a country cannot or will not protect its citizens from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, or ethnic cleansing, then it must accept support or assistance from other nations to end the violence. While the sovereignty of countries to regulate their own internal affairs is respected, it is conditional and not absolute. When peaceful means are exhausted and leaders of a UN member state are “manifestly failing to protect their populations,” then other states have the responsibility to take collective action through the Security Council.

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