May 13, 2006
ST. BONIFACE, Manitoba
2006/6
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
NOTES FOR AN ADDRESS BY
FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER AND MINISTER OF THE ATLANTIC
CANADA OPPORTUNITIES AGENCY PETER MACKAY,
AT THE INTRODUCTORY SESSION
OF THE ST. BONIFACE MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE
ON CONFLICT PREVENTION AND HUMAN SECURITY
“NEW CHALLENGES, THE STATE AND
THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT”
The period following the Cold War was marked by a series of humanitarian
disasters—in Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda and Kosovo—that focused
international attention on the issue of protecting civilian populations. Today, with the
crisis still raging in Darfur, despite the signing of the peace agreement, there is deep
anguish over the vulnerability of civilian populations in increasingly insecure situations.
The death and displacement of civilians remains an active aim of combatants in too
many conflicts. This tragic situation is intolerable. The impunity of those responsible for
violating human rights and humanitarian law leaves a painful legacy for war-torn
societies to manage.
While there is widespread consensus regarding the need to enforce humanitarian
standards and protect civilians from the worst threats to their security, we continue to
fall short of this goal.
Without a doubt, the most challenging aspect of this issue is deciding what to do in
cases of internal conflict, which often pit fundamental principles of sovereignty and
non-intervention directly against humanitarian obligations.
Canada promoted the “responsibility to protect,” both to resolve this dilemma and to
provide a response model for the international community. The responsibility to protect
has now become a universally recognized standard, including by the main body
charged with its implementation—the [United Nations] Security Council.
The 2005 UN World Summit forged an international consensus on the responsibility to
protect. It acknowledges that each state has a responsibility to protect its population
from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. It also
stipulates that the international community must encourage and assist states in carrying
out this responsibility. Most importantly, member states at the Summit formally
expressed their willingness to take timely and decisive action, through the Security
Council, when peaceful means are inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail to
protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing or other crimes
against humanity.
Just two weeks ago, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1674 on the protection
of civilians, affirming the support of the Security Council for the principle of the
responsibility to protect.
La Francophonie has good reason to welcome this major step. In 2004, at the
Ouagadougou Summit, La Francophonie took the lead in accepting the principle of the
responsibility to protect.
We welcome the global consensus that has been reached on these standards. But we
also need to put measures in place to implement our commitments. To do this, we must
ensure that the international community has the information, the will and the capability
to respond effectively to genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including
the prevention and suppression of these crimes, and prosecution of the perpetrators.
Multilateral, and especially cross-regional, organizations such as La Francophonie have
an important role to play in strengthening the principle of the responsibility to protect.
They can play this role by urging their members to implement this responsibility at the
national and international levels.
La Francophonie has a role to play in promoting the state’s responsibility to protect
civilians, by insisting that concrete actions be taken at the at the national and
international levels in this regard, including building the capacity of states, institutions
and international actors to effectively mitigate and address attacks against civilian
populations.
La Francophonie should also be able to contribute to an early warning system that
would provide the international community with more detailed and timely information on
imminent crises.
Canada continues to assert that the principle of the responsibility to protect needs to be
incorporated into Security Council norms and practices. For this reason, Canada
continues to urge the Security Council to adopt guiding principles to which the Council
would refer before authorizing the use of military force, as recommended by the
Secretary-General of the United Nations. These principles are: the seriousness of the
threat (there must be irreparable harm), right intention (the goal of the intervention must
clearly be to avoid human suffering), last resort (all peaceful measures must be proven
inadequate), proportional means (any military intervention must be limited to the
minimum necessary), and reasonable prospects (the intervention must have a genuine
chance of success). We urge La Francophonie to put its full weight behind support for
this effort.
The challenge we face is translating our commitments into action. Canada will continue
to work diligently at the United Nations and within La Francophonie and other
multilateral forums to ensure that the responsibility to protect is not only recognized, but
also put into practice. Of course, we will be counting on the support of our francophone
partners to achieve this goal.
Thank you.