The conference was hosted by Professor Vasilka Sancin, former Member and Vice-Chair of the UN Human Rights Committee (2019-2022) and Head of the Department of International Law and Director of the Institute of International Law and International Relations at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana. The President of the Republic of Slovenia, H.E. Dr. Nataša Pirc Musar and the Special Adviser of the UN Secretary-General on the Responsibility to Protect, George Okoth-Obbo, delivered, respectively, opening remarks and a lecture regarding the implementation of responsibility to protect.
During the 54th meeting of the UN General Assembly in 1999, former Secretary-General Kofi Annan raised concerns about the conflict between humanitarian intervention and respect for State sovereignty, particularly in light of the atrocities having taken place in Rwanda and Srebrenica. In response to Annan's concerns, Canada took the initiative to create the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) announced during the 55th General Assembly meeting in 2000. The ICISS released its inaugural report the following year, introducing the notion of the responsibility to protect (R2P). In 2005, the concept of R2P was unanimously adopted by Member States at the UN World Summit, which declared that “[e]ach individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. The UN Security Council subsequently confirmed its commitment to R2P in adopting Resolution 1674 (2006).
The conference encompassed a wide range of topics, including the past achievements and future potential of R2P focal points: its relationship with the UN Security Council, its intersection with International Criminal Law, the influence of artificial intelligence on R2P, its significance in protecting children, the role of women, etc.
Ms. Tiunn presented her paper entitled Sexual Violence as Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect in Contemporary Asia as part of the panel addressing the regional approaches to R2P. Her paper explores the role of sexual violence in genocide through the lens of R2P. She examines these specific atrocities against two marginalized minority groups: the Rohingya (in Rakhine State, Burma/Myanmar) and the Uyghurs (in Xinjiang, China). She concludes that sovereignty without responsibility (i.e. not in service of the people) persists in these cases – which is the very opposite of the core of R2P, and will negatively impact international peace and security. As such, this poses a threat to the international community as a whole. Her paper was published in advance of the conference by the University of Ljubljana in the book titled The Limits of Responsibility to Protect (Ljubljana: University of Ljubljana, 2023, pp. 136-171).