Blood and Borders: The Responsibility to Protect and the Problem of the Kin-State - Tapa blanda

Inter-ethnic conflict and genocide have demonstrated the dangers of failing to protect people targeted by fellow citizens. When minority groups in one country are targeted for killings or ethnic cleansing based on their group identity, whose responsibility is it to protect them? In particular, are they owed any protective responsibility by their kin-state? How can cross-border kinship ties strengthen greater pannational identity across borders without challenging territorially defined national security? As shown by the Russia-Georgia conflict over South Ossetia, unilateral intervention by a kin-state can lead to conflict within and between states. The protection of national minorities should not be used as an excuse to violate state sovereignty and generate interstate conflict.

Walter Kemp is director for Europe and Central Asia at the International Peace Institute. Vesselin Popovski is senior academic program officer and head of the Peace and Security section at the Institute for Sustainability and Peace at the United Nations University.Ramesh Thakur is professor of international relations in the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, Australian National University.