Introduction

In September 2005, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) unanimously endorsed the World Summit Outcome Document (WSO Document), paragraphs 138 through 140 of which recognise the individual and collective responsibility of states to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity (RtoP). The document inter alia explicitly expresses the preparedness of the international community to ‘take collective action … through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter, including Chapter VII … in cooperation with relevant regional organisations as appropriate’. The importance of involving regional organisations in all aspects of the complex task of safeguarding civilian populations from the scourge of mass atrocities is also evident from the reference in paragraph 139 of the WSO Document to the responsibility of the international community ‘to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means [to this end], in accordance with [Chapter VIII] of the Charter’. Chapter VIII, it is recalled, covers the relationship between the UN and regional agencies or arrangements.

The 2005 declaration – reaffirmed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in April 2006 – was seen by many as a historic step towards the entrenchment of an emerging international norm, developed only four years earlier by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). As things turned out, however, this was only the beginning of a fastidious, ongoing process of consensus-building in support of RtoP. The RtoP notion has endured contest and at times virulent opposition, including from some of its earlier promoters, and the meaning and implications of the concept as of yet remain unclear. UN Secretary-General (UNSG) Ban Ki-moon has nevertheless shown determination to move the debate forward in order to ‘turn promise into practice, words into deeds’. Taking steps to ‘operationalise’ RtoP within the UN system, the Secretary-General issued a report in January 2009 on the implementation of the responsibility to protect. However, the role of regional organisations received only piecemeal attention in this otherwise comprehensive report.

By and large, the importance of regional organisations and their relationship with the UN in operationalising the RtoP concept has eluded clarification.