Implementing 'responsibility to protect' must not violate state sovereignty: Pakistan

UNITED NATIONS - The implementation of the doctrine of "responsibility to protect" should not contravene the principle of state sovereignty and the principle of noninterference in internal affairs, Pakistan's U.N. ambassador said Friday.
Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon made the remarks as he addressed a plenary session of the UN General Assembly on "Responsibility to Protect", the international understanding to intervene to stop atrocities from taking place.
While stating that Pakistan had no difference with the principle on the necessity to protect innocent civilians, he said the protection of civilians rested first with the State, and sovereignty should remain the overarching principle for contemporary international relations.
Agreed to by world leaders in 2005, responsibility to protect known as 'R2P 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.
The Pakistani ambassador emphasized that R2P should not become a basis for contravening the principles of non-interference and non-intervention. The international communitys responsibility within R2P was to provide appropriate, diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, which deal with threats to peace.
R2P should be implemented on a case-by-case basis, not as a norm but an exception, he said.
Given that situations leading to action based on R2P were often the result of underdevelopment and poverty, the commitment to help States build capacity remained the best prevention, Haroon said.
The ambassador called for a comprehensive approach to prevent the four core crimes, starting with conflict prevention and using all existing mechanisms in the United Nations system. Instruments like the genocide and Geneva Conventions, as well as organs such as the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council, should also be leveraged.
The Secretary-Generals report, he said, stimulated conversation on R2P, but the Assemblys debate was a "work in progress".
Consistency of language and expression would help in furthering the R2P concept, Haroon said. Strengthening early-warning capacity would also be critical in moving the discussion forward. It was also important to evaluate the accountability factor and the cost of false alarms.
Decisions were needed on how to address the trust deficit given historical injustice, including foreign occupation, he said. There was also a need to address the threshold that would trigger R2P action. Simple discretion would be the ultimate factor in deciding whether to apply the responsibility to protect at the present stage. The existence of a historical lack of trust was being overlooked.
Haroon said that the UNs failure in Rwanda to save the population from genocide called for the eed to improve its Early Warning Capacity in such situations. Criticizing the UN's role in Rwanda, he said neither the Security Council nor the member states were approached leading to loss of valuable lives. .