Joumal of Ajdcan Conflicts and Peace Studies THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT AND PREVENTING GENOCIDE IN THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY

Abstract: As the new century rolls or:. as genocide continues Jfl places such as Oa11w anc tne oic' slogans such as ·never again.. and others retain the rmg of insincerity. new prescriptions emetged as to how genocide is to be prevented in this 21st centwy Already. however, the century is not so new and neither are the prescriptions. in order to fully understand the newest of the ne,.,,deas The Responsibt!ity to Protect. it must be placed with in the context of international potiiJcs and a bnef n1sco;}' of prevention in the late Twentieth Century. Failure to Prevent Genocide in the Twentieth Century In order to 1Jnderstand the vanous means whicn have bee11 proposed to arevent genocide we must begin wi th a brief on the international state system. As elementary as th is must appeaL it is absolutely essential Beginning with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the nation state system grew and evolved in such a fashion that the resulting states have been guided in their behavior by two broad concepts: sovereignty and national interest. As much as we would like to believe that this has somehow been altered and thus changed over the years, the simple but profound fact is that international politics has been dominated by th