CIAO DATE: 05/02

Discussions at the Release of The Responsibility to Protect

Canadian Foreign Minister William Graham and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan were keynote speakers at a seminar in New York on 15 February to discuss the final report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). Entitled The Responsibility to Protect, the report was released at UN Headquarters last December. The seminar was organized by the International Peace Academy with the support of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to allow a frank discussion of the Commission's findings and recommendations. Although journalists were invited to the event, all statements except the keynote speeches were off the record.

The ICISS was established in September 2000 by then-Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy. It was a response to a controversial 1999 speech in the General Assembly by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in which he reflected on the international community's uneven track record in dealing with man-made humanitarian disasters and urged a new international consensus on responding to massive violations of human rights and humanitarian law.

Full text (pdf)