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Interview with Mohamed Sahnoun (30 July 2011)

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Interview with Mohamed Sahnoun (30 July 2011) Global Responsibility to Protect 3 (2011) 473–479 brill.nl/gr2p Interview with Mohamed Sahnoun (30 July 2011) Mohamed Sahnoun has had a distinguished diplomatic career, serving inter alia as Adviser to the President of Algeria on diplomatic aff airs; Deputy Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity (OAU); and Deputy Secretary-General of the League of Arab States in charge of the Arab-Africa dialogue. In 2001, Ambassador Sahnoun served as co-chair of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). To mark the 10-year anniversary of the ICISS report’s publication, Ambassador Sahnoun shared his thoughts on the evolution of the responsibility to protect over the past decade. 1) How did you fi rst become involved in the ICISS process? In what ways did your previous posts prepare you for the task that the Commission faced? Prior to my role on the ICISS Commission I held several posts where I witnessed fi rst-hand the tragedy of systematic human rights violations. I was the Special Representative of the UN to Somalia (1992); Joint Representative of the UN and the OAU in the Great Lakes region and Central Africa (1996- 1998); Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General on the Ethiopian/Eritrean confl ict (1998-2000) and the Sudan (2001-2005). Another formative experi- ence was the time I spent as a Pearson Fellow at the International Development Research Council (IDRC) in Canada, which happened to coincide with the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. During my time at the IDRC I had a number of conversations with General Romeo Dallaire. I also participated in several pan- els on the subject and had meetings with the then Foreign Minister of Canada, Lloyd Axworthy, who played an important role in putting together ICISS. It was clear throughout the 1990s, particularly after NATO’s controversial inter- vention in Kosovo that some new thinking was needed on this issue and I was © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI 10.1163/187598411X602044 474 M. Sahnoun / Global Responsibility to Protect 3 (2011) 473–479 extremely humbled by the invitation I received to co-chair ICISS. Th e main task the Commission faced was to reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable principles of sovereignty and respect for human rights. Th is was an extremely challenging mandate, particularly given the limited time frame the Commission had to complete its work. 2) Looking at the way in which the concept has evolved in contrast to the early days of the Commission’s work, is this more or less where you thought R2P would be ten years later? Th e development of R2P over the past decade has, in many respects, exceeded my expectations. When we fi rst began working, our initial expectation was to have R2P adopted within the UN system. Th is process was slightly delayed in the aftermath of 9/11; however the 2005 World Summit agreement seems to have put the process back on track. But we are still miles away from what we envisaged in 2001. As long as the international community overlooks the commission of mass atrocities in places like Sudan and the DRC, the rhetoric of R2P will continue to ring hollow. I think there is still too much suspicion among Members States about the principle, and a general reluctance to invoke R2P in cases that clearly warrant it. 3) It goes without saying that R2P has changed signifi cantly over the years. Th e version that was fi rst articulated in 2001 diff ers from the ver- sion that came out in the 2005 WSOD, and again in the 2009 SG report on implementation. How would you respond to the critique that subse- quent versions amount to ‘R2P lite’? In what ways do you think the con- cept has changed, and do you tend to agree with the view that the ICISS version was more ambitious in its scope? I don’t think the concept has changed at its core. It is certainly the case that the 2005 WSOD narrowed the focus of R2P, but I don’t think that it has been altered signifi cantly. Th e commitment to protect is still ever-present. I am familiar with the criticism that R2P has been watered down between 2001 and today, but I think the subtle amendments to it are the result of the norm hav- ing gone through a political process, and in many ways, this has strengthened it. So I don’t really see two distinct versions, but rather, a more substantive articulation of what was advanced in 2001. .
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