This week’s “peace picks”

1.  International Responsibility After Libya, January 9, 10 -11:30 AM, Brookings Institution

The question of international responsibility for protecting civilians at risk has long been a topic of heated debate within the global community. From the protection of civilians in peacekeeping mandates to the principle of “responsibility to protect,” the international community has grappled with the question of its role in protecting people when their governments are unable or unwilling to do so. The NATO-led operation to prevent Muammar Qaddafi’s forces from inflicting mass atrocities on Libyan civilians was the first United Nations-authorized military intervention which explicitly invoked the “responsibility to protect” principle as grounds for action.

The Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement will host a discussion on what the Libyan intervention means for future international efforts to protect civilians. Panelists include Edward Luck, the United Nations special advisor on the responsibility to protect; Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Richard Williamson; Jared Genser, an international human rights lawyer; and Irwin Cotler, a Canadian member of Parliament and expert on human rights law. Genser and Cotler are co-editors of The Responsibility to Protect: The Promise of Stopping Mass Atrocities in Our Times (Oxford University Press, 2011). Senior Fellow Elizabeth Ferris, co-director of the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement, will provide introductory remarks and moderate the discussion.

2.  Cooperation from Strength: The United States, China and the South China Sea, January 10, 9 – 11:30 am, Center for New American Security

American interests are increasingly at risk in the South China Sea. The geostrategic significance of the South China Sea is difficult to overstate – the United States and countries throughout the region have a deep interest in sea lines of communication that remain open to all, both for commerce and for peaceful military activity. Yet China continues to challenge that openness through its economic and military rise and through concerns about its unwillingness to uphold existing legal norms.

The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) will release the report Cooperation from Strength: The United States, China and the South China Sea, which examines the future of U.S. strategy in the South China Sea and the impact of territorial disputes on the maritime commons. The event will feature a keynote address by Admiral Jonathan Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations, followed by a discussion with a distinguished panel of experts chaired by Richard Danzig, former Secretary of the U.S. Navy, and including Ambassador Chan Heng Chee, Ambassador of the Republic of Singapore to the United States, and report co-authors Patrick Cronin, Senior Advisor and Senior Director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program and Robert D. Kaplan, Senior Fellow, both of the Center for a New American Security. RSVP here or call (202) 457-9427.

Copies of Cooperation from Strength: The United States, China and the South China Sea will be available at the event.

3.  Reframing U.S. Strategy in a Turbulent World: American Spring? January 11, 12:15 – 1:45 pm