UQ academic seeks an end to genocide and mass atrocities

As a ceasefire in Gaza is called and the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe deepens, a UQ academic is seeking an end to genocide and mass atrocities.

Alex Bellamy is Professor of International Relations in the School of Political Science and International Studies and also Executive Director of the Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect which is housed at UQ.

His latest book Responsibility to Protect: The Global Effort to End Mass Atrocities charts the emergence of the international principle of the Responsibility to Protect (known as R2P) endorsed at the 2005 UN World Summit.

Professor Bellamy explores how world leaders came to acknowledge that sovereign rights entailed fundamental responsibilities and what that acknowledgment actually means.

Importantly, the book analyses the ways in which R2P can contribute to the global effort to end genocide and mass atrocities, focusing on the prevention of these crimes, the improvement of the world's reaction to them and explores the question of how to build lasting peace.

In an endorsement of the book, Special Adviser to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Edward Luck, comments: “Alex Bellamy's Responsibility to Protect: The Global Effort to End Mass Atrocities should be must reading for scholars, commentators, and practitioners alike.

“He chronicles both the evolution of the principle and the struggles to put it into practice with a rare combination of rigorous scholarship, sophisticated analysis and engaging prose."

Professor Bellamy is a recipient of a number of ARC grants, a UQ Research Excellence Award and awards for excellence from the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and British International Studies Association.

Recent honours include the award for best article in the Review of International Studies and also the Political Studies Association’s award for best article in the British Journal of Politics and IR.
Responsibility to Protect: The Global Effort to End Mass Atrocities is published by Polity Press.

Media: Professor Alex Bellamy (07 3365 3301, a.bellamy@uq.edu.au)