A chronic protection problem: the DPRK and the Responsibility to Protect

The Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea (DPRK) is arguably the world's most chronic abuser of human rights. In an unprecedented move, a Commission of Inquiry established by the UN's Human Rights Council accused the DPRK government of systematic violations of human rights amounting to crimes against humanity. In so doing, the Commission succeeded in putting human rights in the DPRK on the global agenda. Within months the UN's General Assembly and Security Council had joined the human rights body in examining the issue. This article explains the emergence of this new engagement with human rights in the DPRK, showing its relation to the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ principle. It charts the growing sense of frustration felt at the lack of progress on human rights in DPRK and shows how this was manifested in the General Assembly's decision to pursue the Commission's recommendations and call on the Security Council to take concrete steps. Despite this, however, the article shows that there are powerful obstacles in the way of a more robust international approach to human rights in the DPRK and counsels a less confrontational approach focused on engaging China and building trust within the Security Council.     

Russia,humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: the case of Syria

Western analysis perceives Russian approaches to issues of humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as running counter to western‐inspired international norms. This debate has surfaced with some vigour over Russia's policy in the Syria conflict where, in order to protect its strategic interests in Syria, an obstructionist Moscow has been accused of ignoring humanitarian considerations and allowing time for the Assad regime to crush the opposition by vetoing a resolution threatening to impose sanctions. While Russian approaches are undoubtedly explained by a desire to maximize its growing political influence and trade advantages to serve its legitimate foreign policy interests, and while Moscow's attitudes to intervention and R2P exhibit important differences from those of the major western liberal democracies, its arguments are in fact framed within a largely rational argument rooted in ‘traditional’ state‐centred international law. This article first highlights key arguments in the scholarly literature on intervention and R2P before going on to examine the evolution of Russian views on these issues. The analysis then focuses on the extent to which Moscow's arguments impact on international legal debates on the Libya and Syria conflicts. The article then seeks to explore how Russian approaches to intervention/R2P reflect fundamental trends in its foreign policy thinking and its quest for legitimacy in a negotiated international order. Finally, it attempts to raise some important questions regarding Russia's role in the future direction of the intervention/R2P debates.     

The Responsibility to Protect at 15

In the fifteen years since the publication of the report ‘The Responsibility to Protect’ by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, there has been a burgeoning literature on all aspects of R2P. This review article focuses on five issues. First, it revisits the shift from ‘humanitarian intervention’ to R2P as the key innovation in 2001, highlighting the political, conceptual, normative, procedural and operational differences between the two. Second, it examines the state of knowledge regarding the causes of atrocities; the institutional vulnerabilities and points of resilience; the pathways from simmering animosities to mass killings; the indicators and precursors; and the most effective preventive and response mechanisms. Third, it reviews the unsatisfactory state of R2P implementation. Fourth, it discusses the main R2P actors, from international organizations and key groups of states to individuals. Finally, it addresses the continuing scepticism about R2P, in that it does not resolve all the dilemmas of how outsiders can provide timely, decisive and effective assistance to any group in need of protection.     

The Responsibility to Protect and the International Criminal Court: counteracting the crisis

The establishment of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) process and the International Criminal Court (ICC) were seen by many to constitute significant progress in the protection of human rights. However, these institutions are now in crisis, due in large part to their failure to prevent or prosecute recent acute human rights abuses in Syria. There have been two responses to this crisis: the first assumes that the crisis is caused by the current structures of international governance, in particular the power of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), and calls for radical reform. The second sees possibilities within the current structure and advocates making R2P and the ICC more closely aligned under UNSC control. The article argues that both responses are mistaken and sets out an argument in favour of refocusing on the complementary nature of each institution. The Court's most successful actions have been in exercising the powers afforded by its complementary jurisdiction in situations such as Colombia. Similarly, R2P works more successfully at preventing conflict and changing expectations of acceptable state behaviour than it does at confronting situations in which large‐scale violence has begun. The article argues that the ICC and R2P should focus on ‘positive complementarity’ agendas, with the ICC devoting more resources to assisting states to build legal capacity in order to deter future conflict through stronger domestic criminal systems, and advocates of R2P focusing less on intervention in live conflict situations and more on building within states the capacity and resources to protect their own populations.     

British civil–military relations and the problem of risk

Drawing primarily on the experience of the UK since 2001, this article examines the increasing prevalence of risk as an organizing concept for western defence and security planning and its implications for civil–military relations and strategy‐making. It argues that there may be tensions between such approaches and the principles of good strategy‐making, which aim to link means and resources to ends in a coherent manner. Not only does risk potentially blur the relationship between means and ends in the strategy‐making process, it also exposes it to contestation, with multiple interpretations of what the risks actually are and the strategic priority (and commitment) which should be attached to them. The article examines these tensions at three levels of risk contestation for British defence: institutions, operations and military–society relations. In the case of the UK, it contends that the logic of risk has not been able to provide the same national motivation and sense of strategic purpose as the logic of threat. In this context, calls for a reinvigoration of traditional strategy‐making or a renewed conception of national interest may be missing a more fundamental dissonance between defence policy, civil–military relations and the wider security context. More widely, the strategic ennui that some western states have been accused of may not simply be a product of somehow falling out of the habit of strategy‐making or an absence of ‘political will’. Instead, it may reflect deeper social and geostrategic trends which constrain and complicate the use of military force and obscure its utility in the public imagination.     

The military covenant and the civil–military contract in Britain

Is the British civil–military contract strained to breaking point? The contemporary portrayal of British civil–military relations is bleak, with academics, politicians, the media and military charities arguing that military–societal relations are in urgent need of repair. Through assessing the extent to which the reciprocal expectations of the armed forces and the British public are realized, this article will argue that the moral contract, although under stress, is not breaking. Underlying social trends and the use of doctrinal concepts such as the military covenant have, combined with recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, altered the expectations of both sides causing tensions within military–societal relations. Yet, while the armed forces do harbour unrealized expectations of the British public who are unwilling or unable to support the use of the military in recent conflicts, neither the public nor the military is so disillusioned with the performance of the other for the relationship to be described as breaking or broken.     

请拉起手,为保护濒危的白鹤宣誓 《保护白鹤法库国际宣言》在辽宁法库国际白鹤节上签署发布

<正>由国际鹤类基金会、中国野生动物保护协会、沈阳市人民政府主办的第六届沈阳法库国际白鹤节,3月27日在辽宁省法库县正式启动。来自国际鹤类基金会以及中、美、俄、日、韩、蒙古等国家的官员、专家、学者聚集法库,向全世界发布《保护白鹤法库国际宣言》,并向国际社会提出建议每年3月27日为世界白鹤日。     

Assessing Measures Designed to Protect the Homeland

Some general parameters are proposed for evaluating homeland security measures that seek to make potential targets notably less vulnerable to terrorist attack, and these are then applied to specific policy considerations. Since the number of targets is essentially unlimited, since the probability that any given target will be attacked is near zero, since the number and competence of terrorists is limited, since target-selection is effectively a near-random process, and since a terrorist is free to redirect attention from a protected target to an unprotected one of more or less equal consequence, protection seems to be sensible only in a limited number of instances.     

军事志如何突出地方军事特色

突出军事志的地方军事特色,是由地方志的地域性、军事活动的共同性决定的,同时也是军事志编写的质量要求和军事志的功能、价值所在。地方军事特色不是抽象的,它由区域位置、驻区部队、担负任务、组织实施等诸多要素构成。记述这些特色应把握好全局与局部的关系、共性与个性的关系、专志与通志的关系、本区与邻区的关系,具体而言是要熟悉地理环境,了解时代特征,合理谋篇布局,明确记述重点。     

1912－1924年留日士官生与中国军事现代化成败

清末民初,积弱不振的中国在内忧外患的冲击下,接连向日本派遣了大批留学生,专习陆军,这些留日士官生学成归国后,被充实到各个军事部门。他们无论在主持军事教育,还是在充任现役军官方面,均做出了不同程度的贡献。但囿于时代的限制,他们纷纷卷入了军阀混战的旋涡,从而在中国军事现代化进程中留下了败笔。     

善待地球 保护好生命的承载之舟

<正>水能载舟亦能覆舟地球是人类的家园,也是我们生命的承载之舟。尽管地球是太阳系中一颗普通的行星,但它在许多方面都是独一无二的。比如,它是太阳系中唯一一颗面积大部分被水覆盖的行星,也是目前所知唯一一颗有生命存在的星球。人类是地球上的新客,从早期智人的出现算起,至今只有20多万年的历史。这段时间与地球46亿年的悠久岁月相比,不过是短暂的一瞬。地球为人类的生存、繁衍和发展提供了必要的资源和生态环境,它孕育了智慧的人类,铸就了我们健康的身心,从而使我们在发展经济的事业中精力充沛,创造无数的文明奇迹。人类一出现,就与地球形成     

“乾隆大阅甲”的保护处理

“乾隆大阅甲”与常见的织绣品相比,在所用材料和制作工艺上有其特殊性,处理起来难度较大。作者通过反复的摸索和试验,解决了用树脂丝网加固“乾隆大阅甲”过程中所遇到的一系列问题,处理后的效果令人满意。另外,本文对今后工作的研究方向作了有益的探讨。     

《检证·战争责任》读后

一2005年是世界反法西斯战争和中国的抗日战争胜利60周年,也是日本战败60周年。对世界上许多国家来说,这是值得纪念的一年。而在日本,发行量占首位的《读卖新闻》做出了一系列出人意料的举措,成为60周年之际各家媒体中最闪亮的“明星”。2005年6月4日,《读卖新闻》发表了长篇社     

留日士官生与晚清军事现代化

晚清以降,积弱不振的清王朝在内忧外患的冲击下,被动地迈开了富国强兵的步子,接连向日本派遣了大批留学生,专习陆军,这些留日士官生在学成归国后,被充实到各个军事部门。他们无论在主持军事教育,还是在充任现役军官方面,均做出了不同程度的贡献,极大地推动了中国军事现代化进程。     

The dynamics of British military transformation

The British military have embarked on a comprehensive process of transformation towards a network-enabled, effects-orientated, and expeditionary force posture. This has involved developing brand new military doctrine, organizational concepts, and technology. The US military are also transforming, and American military ideas about network-centric and effects-based warfare have influenced the British military. But the British have not simply aped their US ally. Rather, British military transformation has followed a different path. Hence, this article proposes a dynamic model of military innovation involving two international drivers: new operational challenges and military emulation; and three national shapers: resource constraints, domestic politics and military culture. This model is then applied to a detailed empirical analysis of the process and progress of British military transformation.     

明代贵州军屯述论

明代的卫所屯田制度在贵州“蛮荒”之地的开发史上有着重要的一页。本文通过对贵州社会变迁史的回顾来突出论述明代军屯在贵州的具体实施状况以及所产生的巨大历史作用,这对今天贵州地方经济史的研究有着重要意义和价值。