UNGA adopts first resolution on 'responsibility to protect'

UNITED NATIONS - The General Assembly Monday adopted by consensus its first resolution on the concept of responsibility to protect, agreeing to hold further discussions on the international understanding to intervene to stop atrocities from happening.
The resolution noted with appreciation Secretary-General Ban Ki-moons July report calling for speedy action to turn the promise of the responsibility to protect into practice.
Agreed at a summit of world leaders in 2005 and known as R2P, it holds states responsible for shielding their own populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and related crimes against humanity and requires the international community to step in if this obligation is not met.
It is most significant that this resolution was adopted by consensus, Ban said in a statement. I welcome it as an important step as we chart a common path towards meeting the commitment made at the 2005 World Summit.
He said he looked forward to further deepening the dialogue on how best to implement R2P.
It was heartening to hear so many member states, from every part of the world, reaffirm in a constructive and forward-looking debate the commitment made in 2005, Ban said, adding that he found the statements by member states that had suffered such traumas to be particularly meaningful.
Ban asked his Special Adviser Edward Luck and Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Francis Deng to continue their wide-ranging consultations with member states, relevant departments and agencies, regional and sub-regional organizations, and civil society on the many implementation questions still outstanding.
In all our efforts, we should be guided and united by the ultimate purpose of the responsibility to protect: to save lives by preventing the most egregious mass violations of human rights, he added.
Outgoing UN General Assembly President Miguel dEscoto Brockman, meanwhile, said Monday he had been restrained by influential UN members in his efforts to improve the lives of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
My greatest frustration this year has been the Palestine situation, dEscoto Brockman said in his final address to the 192-nation assembly before passing on the one-year presidency to Libyan diplomat Ali Treki.
Treki will open the 64th assembly session Wednesday afternoon.
DEscoto, a former foreign minister in Nicaraguas leftist Sandinista government in the 1980s and a priest, said he was urged to exercise caution and to give the diplomatic process in the Middle East conflict more time to work.
Faced with this situation, I sincerely did not know what to do, he said. I wanted to help Palestine, but those who should supposedly have been most interested denied their support for reasons of 'caution that I was incapable of understanding.
He said he found it disgraceful that influential members of the UN Security Council had shown passivity and apparently indifference on the Israeli blockade of Gaza in the past two years.
He has criticized some western governments during his one-year tenure on issues ranging from the world economic and financial crisis to social injustice suffered by the poor.
In his speech, the assembly President called for a complete overhaul of the United Nations so that it can effectively carry out its mission. The time has already passed for reforming or mending our Organization. What we need to do is to reinvent it, and we need to do it urgently.
He also spoke on topics such as the global financial crisis, international aid and Security Council reform.
Much remains to be done if the United Nations is to become worthy of the prestige, trust and credibility it needs to carry out its mission effectively, a mission that is so important in todays world, he stated.
Diescoto cited, among others, a low level of commitment on the part of the most powerful and influential Member States to the rule of law and to complying with the legal norms enshrined in the UN Charter.
Certain Member States think that they can act according to the law of the jungle, and defend the right of the strongest to do whatever they feel like with total and absolute impunity, and remain accountable to no one.
As a first step to reinventing the UN, DEscoto called for adopting a Universal Declaration of the Common Good of the Earth and Humanity, which could then be the basis for the draft of a new charter for the world body.