In September 2005, world leaders will come together at a United Nations Summit to review progress since the Millennium Declaration and to address key issues related to UN Reform. In preparation, Member States asked Secretary General Kofi Annan to report on the implementation of the Millennium Goals. His report, In Larger Freedom, proposed a bold agenda of ”highest priorities“ for the September Summit. Significantly, it urges Heads of State and Government to ”embrace the 'responsibility to protect' as a basis for collective action against genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.“
In Larger Freedom builds on the report of the High Level Panel on Threat's, Challenges and Change, released in December 2004 and the Millennium Project report (on reaching development goals) released in January 2005.
The High Level Panel was launched in 2003 to examine the full range of security threats and make recommendations regarding the political and institutional reform required to maximize the UN's effectiveness. The Panel's report, A More Secure World: Our Shared responsibility, endorses the emerging norm of a collective international responsibility to protect people from mass atrocities. The Panel further recommended that guidelines governing the use of force, closely paralleling those proposed in The Responsibility to Protect, be adopted by the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council.
Go back to: The Responsibility to Protect - the report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty