The U.N.’s “Responsibility to Protect”

By Alexandra Galus

Ali Galus is a 2023 Albany Law School graduate. She grew up in Buffalo, NY, and received Bachelor's degrees in Political Science and International Studies from SUNY Cortland.

While in law school, Ali was a member of the Government Law Review, serving as their Managing Editor for Research and Writing in her 3L year. She was also heavily involved in the Moot Court program and served as the Domenick L. Gabrielli Appellate Advocacy Competition Chair in her 3L year as well.

Ali has done several internships within the New York State government, including at the New York State Department of Health, the Office of the Attorney General, and the New York State Assembly. She will be pursuing a career in civil litigation, starting at Napierski, Vandenburgh, Napierski, and O’Connor this fall.

The official purpose of the United Nations is “[t]o maintain international peace and security; to achieve international cooperation in solving economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian problems and in promoting respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; [and] to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in attaining these common ends.”  The United Nations (“UN”) places a strong focus on international peace and security, as the catalyst to the development of the UN was an international conflict.

However, despite that being one of the UN's basic principles, the organization hasn't always been successful in achieving that goal. In the seventy-seven years since the UN was founded, there have been several armed conflicts, wars, and genocides that have occurred on its watch. The UN has fundamentally restructured how to approach sustaining international peace and security as a result of some startling failures. Some of these failures were not the organization's fault directly. But they were still perceived as contributing to the catastrophes in some way.

What was the UN’s response to the disastrous failures? The introduction of the “Responsibility to Protect” Doctrine. To determine whether the "Responsibility to Protect" Doctrine was the correct response to address the UN’s earlier failures, this paper will examine the UN's most significant errors in carrying out its previous missions, as well as the adoption of the doctrine and its overall success.

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To read the paper, open HERE.

Humanitarian Intervention [presentation]

An Introduction to Legal Force

By Andrea A. Long
Andrea Long, a third-year student at Albany Law School, is the Executive Editor of the Center for Judicial Process. She is a magna cum laude graduate of the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam. Andrea is a Senior Editor on the Albany Law Review, she served as Project Director of the Education Pro Bono Project, and she works year-round as a law clerk in the Office of General Counsel of New York State United Teachers. She was both the winner and Best Oral Advocate of the 2011 Domenick L. Gabrielli Appellate Advocacy Moot Court Competition. For the Fall 2012 semester, Andrea is a legal intern in the law school's Domestic Violence Prosecution Hybrid Clinic.
Andrea prepared this presentation for Professor Bonventre's seminar on International Law of War & Crime, Fall 2012. She has previously been published on ILS. (See Just War: Augustine, Aquinas, & Today, Oct. 28, 2012.)

Humanitarian intervention has become a controversial subject in international law. This presentation begins with a brief overview of humanitarian intervention and situations that often require it. The presentation then describes several different international conflicts with an analysis of the humanitarian intervention that occurred. It ends by suggesting methods for future improvements in humanitarian intervention.

(click to enlarge slides)

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For the entire presentation, open HERE.
(It is then best to download the presentation and view it from there.)