The mandate of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty was to build a broader understanding of the problem of reconciling intervention and sovereignty and to foster global political consensus on how to move from polemics, and often paralysis, towards action within the international system, particularly through the United Nations.

The ICISS Research Directorate, located at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), provided essential support. This international research team was led by Thomas G. Weiss, Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute and Presidential Professor, Stanlake J.T.M. Samkange, a lawyer from Zimbabwe and former UN staff member, and Don Hubert, of the Peacebuilding and Human Security Division at Foreign Affairs Canada (FAC).

Research was compiled as a supplementary volume entitled The Responsibility to Protect: Research, Bibliography, Background. The first part contains background research in the form of nine substantial research essays; the second part is a comprehensive bibliography; and the third, about the Commission, contains background information in how the Commission functioned and summaries of the consultations held around the world during its year-long mandate. This volume, like the report itself, should prove a quarry for scholars, specialists and policy makers for years to come. The first and third parts are available through FAC’s R2P-Home. The bibliography, which is periodically updated, is available through the Research Directorate home.

Click here to visit the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty website.