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VIETNAM LAWYERS ASSOCIATION THE XVII
th
IADL CONGRESS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATIONOF DEMOCRATIC LAWYERS
The Responsibility to Protect as a Robust International Legal Order 
Y
AMAGATA
HideoAfter the end of the cold war, or after the start of the 21st century, the internationalcommunity is undergoing globalization. People move relatively easily from developingcountries to developed countries in order to get a job with better wage and labor conditions. Companies begin operation beyond borders seeking cheap labor and laxregulation of working condition. Information goes through the world in an instant throughthe internet. At the same time, one event affects not only one region, but also the globeand every creature living on the earth. Global warming, terrorist attacks, epidemicdiseases such as BSE and avian influenza are the bad side of the globalization.Therefore globalization is calling for a robust legal order in the international community.For example, Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, said that“a robust international legal order ... is needed to define the ground rules of an emergingglobal civilization.Surely the responsibility to protect can be one of the rules of a robust legal order.This is relatively new idea which is expected to tackle human sufferings of internal warscaused by a failing or failed state. Kosovo offered an example of humanitarianintervention by NATO allegedly to stop ethnic cleansing. Rwanda offered an oppositeexample of omission of the international community irrespective of the similarity of thesituation with Kosovo. Rwanda was the case where the international intervention wastoo little and too late, while Kosovo was the case where it was too much and too early.A failing or failed state is believed to offer a shelter for terrorists acting in another state and to make refugees flee to neighboring states. Thus the international communityneeds a legal ground for justifying international intervention in a failing or failed state. Itis the responsibility to protect. Kofi Annan also underlined the international responsibilityby saying that “[i]n addition to the separate responsibilities each state bears towards itsown society, states are, collectively, the custodians of our common life on this planet.”The responsibility to protect is getting popular among state officers and staff of international organizations including the United Nations. It avoids the wording of intervention, because the word intervention is associated with illegality in internationallaw and because intervention is not itself humanitarian. Independent InternationalCommission on Kosovo surveyed the issue of legality of intervention by NATO andconcluded that it was “illegal but legitimate” This conclusion illustrates eloquently thecontradiction between legal and political assessment. To solve it, the responsibility toprotect was advanced and supported by some elites of the government of states.The responsibility to protect has gained support of the United States. The UnitedStates initially did not favor such an innovative idea, because it might tie the hand of theAmerican Government when it wants to use force. However the Iraq war changed theattitude of the Government of the United States towards the responsibility to protect. TheIraq war was conducted by the United States and the United Kingdom relying on theSecurity Council resolutions 678, 687 and 1414 on the basis of the alleged possessionof weapons of mass destruction. It is a fact that Iraq did not possess such WMDs, and
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