Word: laws
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...That sounds like a situation in which to invoke the international responsibility to protect. Adopted at a U.N. World Summit in 2005, "R2P" sets out in law the reasons and duty for international intervention: if a nation commits, or is unable to prevent, massive human-rights abuses on its soil. Other, lesser African disasters do qualify for R2P intervention, in the form of large peacekeeping forces. The U.N. has authorized 26,000 troops for Darfur, where massacres are common and 2.5 million people need aid (and mostly receive it). It has also authorized another 20,000 for the Democratic Republic...
...Human Rights (ECHR) held a hearing on the attack and found Russian forces and their commanders responsible for the "indiscriminate bombing" of civilians. "Using this kind of weapon in a populated area ... without prior evacuation of civilians was impossible to reconcile with the degree of caution expected from a law-enforcement body in a democratic society," the court's findings read. (See pictures of Victory Day in Russia...
...move that has sparked outrage from Human Rights Watch (HRW), the officer in charge, Lieut. General Vladimir Shamanov - who is named in the ECHR's findings - has been chosen to head Russia's paratrooper unit. "A commander in this position should have a firm commitment to upholding international humanitarian law," said Holly Cartner, the HRW director for Europe and Central Asia, in a report released on May 28. "It's hard to understand how an officer with oversight for operations that have resulted in numerous violations of humanitarian law has been considered qualified to assume this role...
With the announcement of Shamanov's appointment on May 25, the Kremlin seemed to be sending mixed messages. It's been little more than a year since President Dmitri Medvedev said in his inauguration speech that he would begin a campaign to increase respect for the rule of law in Russia, stating that he places "particular importance on the fundamental role of the law," and that "[Russia] must ensure true respect for the law and overcome the legal nihilism that is such a serious hindrance to modern development...
Shamanov's promotion may also cause trouble on Russia's foreign relations front. A year after Medvedev made his speech promising greater respect for the rule of law, a report by human-rights watchdog Amnesty International said that in Russia "impunity prevails" for human-rights violations by the government. Russia may have gained a hardened combat soldier as the leader of its élite forces, but it's losing international faith in Medvedev's reforms...