This event is part of the University of Oxford Alumni Weekend 2011.

Speaker: Professor Jennifer Welsh, Co-Director, Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, (member of Oxford Martin School); Professor in International Relations, University of Oxford.

Summary: Jennifer Welsh and colleagues from the Oxford Centre for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict discuss the responsibility to protect in contemporary international relations, and its role in key cases such as Libya and the post-election violence in Kenya. Why and how has the principle taken hold in the post Cold War world? What sort of responsibilities do states have to prevent and respond to mass atrocities, and how can these responsibilities be fulfilled? What justifies intervention in one theatre, and absolves us from it in others? This session will identify some of the obstacles to effective strategies for prevention and response, and suggest ways in which they might be overcome.