Dana Zaret Luck

Bio: Dana Zaret Luck is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Moral responsibility. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 7 citations.

Why the United Nations Underperforms at Preventing Mass Atrocities

Abstract: This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact scholarcommons@usf.edu. Recommended Citation Luck, Edward C. (2018) \"Why the United Nations Underperforms at Preventing Mass Atrocities,\" Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal: Vol. 11: Iss. 3: 32-47. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.11.3.1516

Humanitarian symbolic exchange: extending Responsibility to Protect through individual and local engagement

Abstract: Moral common sense frames the relationship between privileged and at-risk populations underpinning contemporary Responsibility to Protect (R2P) discourse. This article develops an alternative by considering the relationship between archetypes of would-be rescuers and victims through Jean Baudrillard's theorisation of symbolic exchange. Baudrillardian analysis connects personal morality and affective intersubjective symbolic exchange with the politics of international order. This leads, first, to an argument that current foundations for advocating R2P risk participating in a problematic moral economy of symbolic exchange between would-be rescuers and victims. Nonetheless, and secondly, the article deploys symbolic exchange to develop suggestions for partially re-figuring R2P's humanitarian impulse by engaging locally' - both through one's self (in the ethical relation suggested by Emmanuel Levinas) and with diverse forms of political order (following Jacques Ranciere's conception of politics). Doing so supports moves to engage a wide array of individual actors in a more interactive and less hierarchical form of R2P, to drive deeper consideration of local complexities of R2P through engagement with diverse local forms of political order, and to develop a more inclusive understanding of humanity' in order to bolster R2P's normative foundations.

R2P at Ten: A New Mindset for a New Era?

Abstract: Like the polarized mix of extravagant praise and merciless scorn that greeted it from the outset, the first decade of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) has been anything but neutral. The highs have been remarkably high, the lows painfully low. R2P has gained far broader and more sustainable political support than skeptics would have imagined, but its achievements on the ground--in preventing mass atrocities and protecting populations--have fallen far short of its proponents' ambitions. Its successes have been quiet, and its failures raw and public. Now, the task is to reposition R2P to meet changing conditions and to reflect lessons learned without losing its enduring core principles, which remain every bit as compelling today as a decade ago. The world has gotten a lot rougher since heads of state and government gathered for the World Summit in September 2005 and, to almost everyone's surprise, endorsed R2P by consensus. Long-suppressed geopolitical contradictions among the big powers have surfaced, environmental and resource pressures have sharpened, and nonstate armed groups with vicious sectarian agendas have emerged to challenge the existing normative order by flouting human rights and human protection norms on a daily basis. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the ranks of forcibly displaced persons reached a new peak of almost 60 million at the end of 2014. R2P did not cause any of this, but these worrisome trends underscore the need for a sober assessment of its record to date and for a fresh look at how early assumptions have withstood the test of time. Experience has reaffirmed the wisdom of the summit text in at least three respects. First, the summit cast R2P in sufficiently broad terms to permit substantial adjustments as circumstances and practice demanded. That amendment process is already well under way. In designing the Secretary-General's three-pillar implementation strategy, it was evident even in 2008 that the protection principles adopted by the summit had to be extended to nonstate armed groups. There already had been several situations in which governments had failed to exercise effective control over all of their territory so that armed groups had committed mass rapes, mutilations, and murders. The Secretary-General and I understood that international engagement should be early and flexible, depending on the circumstances of each case, and not dependent on Security Council authorization when undertaken under Chapter VI or VIII of the UN Charter. Within those bounds, the Secretariat did not need to get the permission of the five permanent members to take preventive action in Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire, and other places. Our efforts to convince leaders in countries under stress to take a different path did not always succeed, but we were acutely aware that personal diplomacy, often with regional partners, and the bully pulpit were unique assets of the Secretary-General and his representatives. Our responsibility was twofold: to make the members of the Security Council and other key actors aware of the risks of atrocity crimes and to be the voice of the vulnerable even when great-power politics did not permit more forceful action. And we learned in Sri Lanka the high cost of failing to be sufficiently outspoken. Second, for all of its ups and downs in practice, in political and normative terms the progress of R2P has been remarkably rapid, especially compared to other human rights and human protection norms. Among the member states, there are still questions about implementation--as well there should be--but not about the validity and legitimacy of the prevention and protection principles that lie at the heart of R2P. The level of understanding, not just acceptance, today is much deeper and much wider than when I crafted the Secretary-General's initial statements and report seven years ago. We turned what most observers claimed was the Achilles' heel of the summit agreement--the General Assembly's "continuing consideration"--into a series of annual reports and Assembly dialogues on different aspects of R2P that have sharpened doctrine and advanced acceptance of the norm. …

The Reduction of Mass Atrocity Crimes in East Asia: The Evolving Norms of ASEAN's Prevention Mechanisms

Abstract: ASEAN member states represent a region that has experienced a dramatic reduction in mass atrocity crimes in the last forty years. Scholars have identified three structural explanations for this reduction: the decrease in the use of mass atrocities as a tool of war, rising incomes, and the spread of democracy. The evolution of complex and contested human rights norms during this same period contributed significantly to the positive role played by the three structural factors in the decline of atrocity crimes. This paper highlights the human rights norms that anchor ASEAN atrocity prevention mechanisms and suggests that the association can serve as a model for other regional organizations.

Fixing Responsibility to Protect: Lessons from and Proposals for the Case of Libya

Abstract: The intervention of the international community into the developments of the Libyan civil war in 2011 has presented the scholarship with the chance to analyse an exemplary case of application of the principle of Responsibility to Protect. The authors of this research inquire into the theoretical background of this principle, examine the way it was implemented in Libya, discuss the political, legal and moral sides of the phenomenon and scrutinize the impact of the 2011 intervention on the dramatic events witnessed in the country thereafter. The authors support their speculations on the latter issue by conducting the analysis of the problems related to the uncontrolled refugee situation in Libya and the reaction of the international community to this matter within the context of the implementation of the principle of Responsibility to Protect. The paper proposes instances of reform for the institutional apparatus implementing Responsibility to Protect, concrete tools for addressing the current refugee crisis in Libya and set the marker for further research.