NEW YORK -- "The Responsibility to Protect," the report by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, was presented to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York on Dec. 18. ICISS was set up by Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy and fully supported by his successor, John Manley, in response to Annan's challenge to forge a new consensus on the competing principles of international humanitarian concerns and national sovereignty. ICISS members were carefully chosen to reflect a range of geographic, political and professional backgrounds. The work over the past year took us to all continents and most major capitals to hear and reflect on different streams of international opinion.
The report was aimed at changing conceptual language from "humanitarian intervention" to "responsibility to protect" and ensuring that intervention is carried out with due diligence.
Our core principle is that the primary responsibility for protecting people of a state lies with the state itself. When a population of state suffers serious harm because of civil war, insurgency, repression or government failure and the government of the state is unwilling or unable to halt or avert the harm, the principle of nonintervention yields to the international responsibility to protect.