Listen to CFR's Kara McDonald discuss the international response to the devastating January 12 earthquake in Haiti.

Haiti's earthquake created a need for a tremendous short-term relief effort but also long-term reconstruction that could take decades and cost billions, says former Peace Corps director Mark L. Schneider.

Recent events in Darfur raise the familiar question of whether international law facilitates the kind of early, decisive, and coherent action needed to effectively combat genocide. Matthew C. Waxman argues that putting decisions about international intervention solely in the hands of the UN Security Council risks undermining the threat or use of intervention when it may be most potent in stopping mass atrocities.

Ambassador Susan Rice, United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations,
gave these remarks in New York on June 15, 2009.

Michael Gerson argues that in light of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur's refugee camps, the international community faces  a difficult choice: accept President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's decision to expel relief groups, or increase pressure on Sudan's regime at the risk of more short-term suffering and death.

The Department of Defense revised their protocol on DoD's role in humanitarian assistence on March 17, 2009.

Micah Zenko argues that instituting a no-fly zone over Darfur is not the appropriate response to the ongoing genocide in Sudan.

A report coauthored by the Emergency Assistance Team (Burma) and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, detailing the Burmese government's reluctance to provide aid relief to the victims of Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.

According to the Responsiblity to Protect's (RtoP) summary of core documents, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon released this report on January 12, 2009, to explains how RtoP will operate and the actors involved. Ban Ki-moon envisioned RtoP implementation based on three pillars: "1) the protection responsibilities of the state, 2) international assistance and capacity building, and 3) timely and decisive response to prevent and halt genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity."

Session Three of a Council on Foreign Relations Symposium on International Law and Justice: Evolving Norms and U.S. Responses.

Session Two of a Council on Foreign Relations Symposium on International Law and Justice: Evolving Norms and U.S. Responses.

Session One of a Council on Foreign Relations Symposium on International Law and Justice: Evolving Norms and U.S. Responses.

The international community must ensure that people seeking saftey are protected; soverignty is not a shield behind which authoritarian governments may terrorize their own people.

Because borders are becoming ever more porous and contingent, everyone has an interest in humanitarian intervention.

Human Security Report Project compiles research on the trends, causes, and consequences of political violence. This Brief specifically focuses on three main issues: the threat of Islamist terrorism is not increasing as many experts claim; the number and deadliness of armed conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa has declined due in part to a significant increase in international initiatives; there has been little net change in recent years in the number of conflicts in which a government is one of the warring parties, but that other forms of political violence, including communal conflicts, have declined.

Michael Moran discusses the response to Cyclone Nargis by Myanmar’s authoritarian government, “a regime so fearful for its own survival that it would allow tens of thousands more of its citizens to perish of post-disaster disease, exposure and privations, rather than allow a willing world to come help.”

CFR Senior Fellow Stewart M. Patrick and Steven Groves of the Heritage Foundation debate the merits of supporting the Responsibility to Protect doctrine.

Stewart Patrick addresses the difficult question of whether or not the UN should intervene in Myanmar and do something about the “callous indifference” that the ruling junta is showing towards its people.