Media Releases

Commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide at the University of Toronto

March 24, 2014

TORONTO, ON –  A cam­paign to com­mem­o­rate the 20th anniver­sary of the Rwan­dan geno­cide will be held at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, from March to April 2014.

The cam­paign, called “Jour­ney of Lessons Learned,” will be joint­ly host­ed by the Cana­di­an Cen­tre for the Respon­si­bil­i­ty to Pro­tect, the Bill Gra­ham Cen­tre for the Con­tem­po­rary Inter­na­tion­al His­to­ry, and the Inter­na­tion­al Rela­tions Pro­gramme at Trin­i­ty Col­lege, Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to.

The cam­paign con­sists of the fol­low­ing projects:

- March 29th: A full day con­fer­ence fea­tur­ing Dr. Jen­nifer Welsh, the UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al’s Rep­re­sen­ta­tive on R2P, as the keynote speak­er (Munk School of Glob­al Affairs, 1 Devon­shire Pl.)

- April 1st: A stu­dent pan­el dis­cus­sion with Dr. Made­line Albright and Dr. Lloyd Axwor­thy (See­ley Hall, Trin­i­ty Col­lege, 6 Hoskin Ave.)

- Ear­ly April: Pub­li­ca­tion project with CIC’s Opencanada.org called “Cana­di­an Voic­es on R2P”

- April 5th: Youth & Edu­ca­tion Out­reach to 10 high-schools in the Greater Toron­to Area

- April 15th-17th: A film fes­ti­val called “Eyes on Geno­cide” at Media Com­mons, Robarts Library

ABOUT RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT

The Respon­si­bil­i­ty to Pro­tect, also referred to as RtoP or R2P, is an inter­na­tion­al prin­ci­ple coined in 2001 under the lead­er­ship of the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment and lat­er adopt­ed at the 2005 World Sum­mit by 150 heads of gov­ern­ment. R2P states that when sov­er­eign states are unable or unwill­ing to ful­fill their respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect their own pop­u­la­tions from mass atroc­i­ties such as geno­cide, eth­nic cleans­ing, crimes against human­i­ty and war crimes, the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has the respon­si­bil­i­ty to do so. R2P is an emerg­ing norm in inter­na­tion­al rela­tions and has received much atten­tion late­ly in light of the UN Secu­ri­ty Council’s res­o­lu­tions on Libya and the on-going con­flict in Syr­ia.

The Cana­di­an Cen­tre for R2P, based at Munk School of Glob­al Affairs, Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, is a lead­ing Cana­di­an, non-par­ti­san and non-prof­it research orga­ni­za­tion which aims to pro­mote schol­ar­ly engage­ment and polit­i­cal imple­men­ta­tion of the R2P prin­ci­ple.

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Media reg­is­tra­tion is avail­able for all of our on-site events. For media inquiries, please con­tact:

Ms. Tina J. Park
Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Cana­di­an Cen­tre for the Respon­si­bil­i­ty to Pro­tect
www.ccr2p.org  | 1–647-228‑5705  | executive.director@ccr2p.org