Raymond Kwun-Sun Lau holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Queensland, Australia. He is the author of Responding to Mass Atrocities in Africa: Protection First and Justice Later (London & New York: Routledge, 2022).
This book explores the relationship between the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the Internati... more This book explores the relationship between the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the International Criminal Court (ICC), challenging the assumption that they are always mutually reinforcing or complementary, and examining instead the many tensions which arise between the immediate imperative of saving lives, and the more long-term prospect of punishing perpetrators and preventing future conflicts through deterrence.
Around the world, audiences in the mid-1990s watched the mass atrocities unfolding in Rwanda and Srebrenica in horror and disbelief. Emerging from these disasters came an international commitment to safeguard and protect vulnerable communities, as laid out in the R2P principle, and an international responsibility to punish perpetrators, with the establishment of the ICC. The book provides context-independent proposals for resolving contradictions between the two principles, suggesting that focusing on timing and sequencing in invoking international R2P and ICC actions could facilitate the easing of tensions. Drawing on examples from Uganda, Kenya, and Darfur, the book applies International Relations concepts and theories in order to deepen our understanding of international responses to mass atrocities. Ultimately the book concludes that a 'Protection First, Justice Later' sequence approach is necessary for managing the tension and facilitating more effective and consistent international responses.
This book makes an important contribution to discussions and debates surrounding international responses to genocide and mass atrocities. It will be of special interest to scholars, students and policymakers in International Relations, Global Governance, African Studies, International Development, Human Rights and International Criminal Law.
in Jean Berlie (ed.) China’s Globalization and the Belt and Road Initiative. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020
Since its launch in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become synonymous with Chinese f... more Since its launch in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become synonymous with Chinese foreign policy under Xi Jinping. While China has seen its relations with Africa institutionalized in the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) since 2000, little attention, however, has been paid to exploring the role of African countries in China's Belt and Road Initiative. This chapter seeks to understand Africa-China relations in the context of Beijing's new-found interest in inserting Africa into the Belt and Road route. Contrary to China's official rhetoric on sharing the benefits of the country's economic growth globally, it argues that Africa's inclusion in the Belt and Road Initiative
in Cecilia Jacob and Alistair D.B. Cook. (eds), Civilian Protection in the 21st Century: Governance and Responsibility in a Fragmented World. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016
There has been a change in expectations about international response to mass atrocities in the po... more There has been a change in expectations about international response to mass atrocities in the post-Cold War era and, in particular, the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. In a bid to ensure that the world never again fails to act, the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998 and the adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle in the 2005 World Summit mark the birth of two forms of responsibilities: responsibility to punish and responsibility to protect. The interaction of R2P with the ICC, however, reflects an inherent tension between protection of civilians and punishment of perpetrators in the temporal trajectory of international society’s response to mass atrocities. Using northern Uganda as a case study, this paper explores the relationship between R2P and the ICC by questioning the temporal ordering of R2P-ICC linkages in international society’s response to the twenty-five-year-old conflict. In particular, it explains why invoking ICC judicial intervention instead of R2P political action in the first place tends to be unsuccessful in stopping the ongoing mass atrocities in northern Uganda.
in Everisto Benyera (ed.) Reimagining Justice, Human Rights and Leadership in Africa Challenging Discourse and Searching for Alternative Paths. Cham: Springer, 2020
The 2003 US intervention in Liberia was the first time since the Somalia debacle in 1992 that Was... more The 2003 US intervention in Liberia was the first time since the Somalia debacle in 1992 that Washington became involved again in military intervention with humanitarian purposes in Africa. While the ‘Mogadishu factor’ might explain the minimal and limited American involvement in Liberia’s second civil war, it does not adequately explain what has motivated the US government to re-engage in Liberia and West Africa since 2003. This chapter seeks to make a contribution to the debate on the use of military force in US foreign policy in arguing that US intervention in Liberia is situated in the broader context of American foreign policy towards Africa after 9/11. The principal argument here is that Washington’s partial rehabilitation from the ‘Somalia syndrome’ and gradual re-engagement with Liberia and the West Africa region is largely motivated by two major factors: the global war on terror and subsequent militarisation of US Africa policy, and the desire to enhance US energy security by shifting America’s foreign oil dependency away from the Middle East. The article concludes by examining the implication of US intervention in Liberia for future military interventions that comprise human protection purposes in Africa.
With New Delhi and Tokyo jointly supporting new infrastructure development in Bangladesh to count... more With New Delhi and Tokyo jointly supporting new infrastructure development in Bangladesh to counter China, growing ties among India, Bangladesh and Japan have the potential to change the geopolitical landscape of the Indo-Pacific region.
Strategic competition and rivalry between the United States and China has become a paradigm of in... more Strategic competition and rivalry between the United States and China has become a paradigm of international relations in the past decade. Central to this growing strategic distrust between Washington and Beijing is the tug of war between the US-led Indo-Pacific strategy and China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, the role of China's 'peaceful rise/ peaceful development' strategy and assertive nationalism characteristic of Chinese foreign policymaking in creating an atmosphere of tension and misunderstanding between Beijing and Washington have been largely overlooked. This paper, therefore, seeks to understand the relationship between the rise and fall of China's 'peaceful rise/peaceful development' concept, the emerging prominence of assertive nationalism in China's foreign policy making and a deteriorating US-China relations with deepening strategic mistrust between the two major powers through a comparativehistorical analysis of China's BRI and the US-led Indo-Pacific strategy. Rather than demonstrating China's commitment to its 'peaceful rise/ peaceful development' to the world, this paper argues that Beijing's offensive to defend China's national interests in a confrontational manner is an indication that an increasingly confident Chinese leadership no longer feels the need for reassuring the world that China's 'rise' is peaceful and non-threatening in nature. This could embolden Beijing to defy (if not explicitly challenge) the 'rules-based international order' upheld/ defended by Washington, thereby spelling the end of China's 'peaceful rise/peaceful development' strategy.
Asian Education and Development Studies, Volume 8, Number 4, 2019, pp. 498-510
Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to make sense of the slow and frustrating process of democra... more Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to make sense of the slow and frustrating process of democratization in Hong Kong through understanding the pan-democrats' struggle for realizing universal suffrage. It aims to offer possible explanations for the current political impasse between Hong Kong and mainland China over the issue of universal suffrage. Design/methodology/approach-This paper seeks to construct a triangular model of institutional constraint, clashing visions of democracy and mutual political distrust for understanding the pan-democrats' struggle for realizing universal suffrage in Hong Kong since the 1980s, the nature of current political predicament they found themselves in and the current political impasse between the pan-democrats and Beijing. Findings-The dilemma facing Hong Kong's pan-democrats and Beijing's leadership is attributed to the institutional constraints of Basic Law on Hong Kong's system of governance, the clashing visions of Beijing-led Chinese-style democracy and Western-style liberal democracy as advocated by the pan-democrats and the mutual political distrust between the two parties. The findings suggest that this triangular model will remain relevant in understanding the political predicament of the pan-democrats under Chinese rule and the political impasse between Hong Kong and mainland China over universal suffrage for the coming decades. Originality/value-This paper provides a new interpretation of the current political impasse between Hong Kong and mainland China over the issue of universal suffrage. It offers new insights into the nature of current political predicament the pan-democrats found themselves in amidst their fight for realizing universal suffrage since the 1980s by constructing a triangular model of institutional constraints, clashing visions of democracy and mutual political distrust.
Strategic competition and rivalry between the United States and China has become a paradigm of in... more Strategic competition and rivalry between the United States and China has become a paradigm of international relations in the past decade. Central to this growing strategic distrust between Washington and Beijing is the tug of war between the US-led Indo-Pacific strategy and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, the role of China’s ‘peaceful rise/ peaceful development’ strategy and assertive nationalism characteristic of Chinese foreign policymaking in creating an atmosphere of tension and misunderstanding between Beijing and Washington have been largely overlooked. This paper, therefore, seeks to understand the relationship between the rise and fall of China’s ‘peaceful rise/peaceful development’ concept, the emerging prominence of assertive nationalism in China’s foreign policy making and a deteriorating US-China relations with deepening strategic mistrust between the two major powers through a comparative-historical analysis of China’s BRI and the US-led Indo-Pacific s...
This book explores the relationship between the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the Internati... more This book explores the relationship between the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the International Criminal Court (ICC), challenging the assumption that they are always mutually reinforcing or complementary, and examining instead the many tensions which arise between the immediate imperative of saving lives, and the more long-term prospect of punishing perpetrators and preventing future conflicts through deterrence.
Around the world, audiences in the mid-1990s watched the mass atrocities unfolding in Rwanda and Srebrenica in horror and disbelief. Emerging from these disasters came an international commitment to safeguard and protect vulnerable communities, as laid out in the R2P principle, and an international responsibility to punish perpetrators, with the establishment of the ICC. The book provides context-independent proposals for resolving contradictions between the two principles, suggesting that focusing on timing and sequencing in invoking international R2P and ICC actions could facilitate the easing of tensions. Drawing on examples from Uganda, Kenya, and Darfur, the book applies International Relations concepts and theories in order to deepen our understanding of international responses to mass atrocities. Ultimately the book concludes that a 'Protection First, Justice Later' sequence approach is necessary for managing the tension and facilitating more effective and consistent international responses.
This book makes an important contribution to discussions and debates surrounding international responses to genocide and mass atrocities. It will be of special interest to scholars, students and policymakers in International Relations, Global Governance, African Studies, International Development, Human Rights and International Criminal Law.
in Jean Berlie (ed.) China’s Globalization and the Belt and Road Initiative. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020
Since its launch in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become synonymous with Chinese f... more Since its launch in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become synonymous with Chinese foreign policy under Xi Jinping. While China has seen its relations with Africa institutionalized in the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) since 2000, little attention, however, has been paid to exploring the role of African countries in China's Belt and Road Initiative. This chapter seeks to understand Africa-China relations in the context of Beijing's new-found interest in inserting Africa into the Belt and Road route. Contrary to China's official rhetoric on sharing the benefits of the country's economic growth globally, it argues that Africa's inclusion in the Belt and Road Initiative
in Cecilia Jacob and Alistair D.B. Cook. (eds), Civilian Protection in the 21st Century: Governance and Responsibility in a Fragmented World. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016
There has been a change in expectations about international response to mass atrocities in the po... more There has been a change in expectations about international response to mass atrocities in the post-Cold War era and, in particular, the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. In a bid to ensure that the world never again fails to act, the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998 and the adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle in the 2005 World Summit mark the birth of two forms of responsibilities: responsibility to punish and responsibility to protect. The interaction of R2P with the ICC, however, reflects an inherent tension between protection of civilians and punishment of perpetrators in the temporal trajectory of international society’s response to mass atrocities. Using northern Uganda as a case study, this paper explores the relationship between R2P and the ICC by questioning the temporal ordering of R2P-ICC linkages in international society’s response to the twenty-five-year-old conflict. In particular, it explains why invoking ICC judicial intervention instead of R2P political action in the first place tends to be unsuccessful in stopping the ongoing mass atrocities in northern Uganda.
in Everisto Benyera (ed.) Reimagining Justice, Human Rights and Leadership in Africa Challenging Discourse and Searching for Alternative Paths. Cham: Springer, 2020
The 2003 US intervention in Liberia was the first time since the Somalia debacle in 1992 that Was... more The 2003 US intervention in Liberia was the first time since the Somalia debacle in 1992 that Washington became involved again in military intervention with humanitarian purposes in Africa. While the ‘Mogadishu factor’ might explain the minimal and limited American involvement in Liberia’s second civil war, it does not adequately explain what has motivated the US government to re-engage in Liberia and West Africa since 2003. This chapter seeks to make a contribution to the debate on the use of military force in US foreign policy in arguing that US intervention in Liberia is situated in the broader context of American foreign policy towards Africa after 9/11. The principal argument here is that Washington’s partial rehabilitation from the ‘Somalia syndrome’ and gradual re-engagement with Liberia and the West Africa region is largely motivated by two major factors: the global war on terror and subsequent militarisation of US Africa policy, and the desire to enhance US energy security by shifting America’s foreign oil dependency away from the Middle East. The article concludes by examining the implication of US intervention in Liberia for future military interventions that comprise human protection purposes in Africa.
With New Delhi and Tokyo jointly supporting new infrastructure development in Bangladesh to count... more With New Delhi and Tokyo jointly supporting new infrastructure development in Bangladesh to counter China, growing ties among India, Bangladesh and Japan have the potential to change the geopolitical landscape of the Indo-Pacific region.
Strategic competition and rivalry between the United States and China has become a paradigm of in... more Strategic competition and rivalry between the United States and China has become a paradigm of international relations in the past decade. Central to this growing strategic distrust between Washington and Beijing is the tug of war between the US-led Indo-Pacific strategy and China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, the role of China's 'peaceful rise/ peaceful development' strategy and assertive nationalism characteristic of Chinese foreign policymaking in creating an atmosphere of tension and misunderstanding between Beijing and Washington have been largely overlooked. This paper, therefore, seeks to understand the relationship between the rise and fall of China's 'peaceful rise/peaceful development' concept, the emerging prominence of assertive nationalism in China's foreign policy making and a deteriorating US-China relations with deepening strategic mistrust between the two major powers through a comparativehistorical analysis of China's BRI and the US-led Indo-Pacific strategy. Rather than demonstrating China's commitment to its 'peaceful rise/ peaceful development' to the world, this paper argues that Beijing's offensive to defend China's national interests in a confrontational manner is an indication that an increasingly confident Chinese leadership no longer feels the need for reassuring the world that China's 'rise' is peaceful and non-threatening in nature. This could embolden Beijing to defy (if not explicitly challenge) the 'rules-based international order' upheld/ defended by Washington, thereby spelling the end of China's 'peaceful rise/peaceful development' strategy.
Asian Education and Development Studies, Volume 8, Number 4, 2019, pp. 498-510
Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to make sense of the slow and frustrating process of democra... more Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to make sense of the slow and frustrating process of democratization in Hong Kong through understanding the pan-democrats' struggle for realizing universal suffrage. It aims to offer possible explanations for the current political impasse between Hong Kong and mainland China over the issue of universal suffrage. Design/methodology/approach-This paper seeks to construct a triangular model of institutional constraint, clashing visions of democracy and mutual political distrust for understanding the pan-democrats' struggle for realizing universal suffrage in Hong Kong since the 1980s, the nature of current political predicament they found themselves in and the current political impasse between the pan-democrats and Beijing. Findings-The dilemma facing Hong Kong's pan-democrats and Beijing's leadership is attributed to the institutional constraints of Basic Law on Hong Kong's system of governance, the clashing visions of Beijing-led Chinese-style democracy and Western-style liberal democracy as advocated by the pan-democrats and the mutual political distrust between the two parties. The findings suggest that this triangular model will remain relevant in understanding the political predicament of the pan-democrats under Chinese rule and the political impasse between Hong Kong and mainland China over universal suffrage for the coming decades. Originality/value-This paper provides a new interpretation of the current political impasse between Hong Kong and mainland China over the issue of universal suffrage. It offers new insights into the nature of current political predicament the pan-democrats found themselves in amidst their fight for realizing universal suffrage since the 1980s by constructing a triangular model of institutional constraints, clashing visions of democracy and mutual political distrust.
Strategic competition and rivalry between the United States and China has become a paradigm of in... more Strategic competition and rivalry between the United States and China has become a paradigm of international relations in the past decade. Central to this growing strategic distrust between Washington and Beijing is the tug of war between the US-led Indo-Pacific strategy and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, the role of China’s ‘peaceful rise/ peaceful development’ strategy and assertive nationalism characteristic of Chinese foreign policymaking in creating an atmosphere of tension and misunderstanding between Beijing and Washington have been largely overlooked. This paper, therefore, seeks to understand the relationship between the rise and fall of China’s ‘peaceful rise/peaceful development’ concept, the emerging prominence of assertive nationalism in China’s foreign policy making and a deteriorating US-China relations with deepening strategic mistrust between the two major powers through a comparative-historical analysis of China’s BRI and the US-led Indo-Pacific s...
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Around the world, audiences in the mid-1990s watched the mass atrocities unfolding in Rwanda and Srebrenica in horror and disbelief. Emerging from these disasters came an international commitment to safeguard and protect vulnerable communities, as laid out in the R2P principle, and an international responsibility to punish perpetrators, with the establishment of the ICC. The book provides context-independent proposals for resolving contradictions between the two principles, suggesting that focusing on timing and sequencing in invoking international R2P and ICC actions could facilitate the easing of tensions. Drawing on examples from Uganda, Kenya, and Darfur, the book applies International Relations concepts and theories in order to deepen our understanding of international responses to mass atrocities. Ultimately the book concludes that a 'Protection First, Justice Later' sequence approach is necessary for managing the tension and facilitating more effective and consistent international responses.
This book makes an important contribution to discussions and debates surrounding international responses to genocide and mass atrocities. It will be of special interest to scholars, students and policymakers in International Relations, Global Governance, African Studies, International Development, Human Rights and International Criminal Law.
Around the world, audiences in the mid-1990s watched the mass atrocities unfolding in Rwanda and Srebrenica in horror and disbelief. Emerging from these disasters came an international commitment to safeguard and protect vulnerable communities, as laid out in the R2P principle, and an international responsibility to punish perpetrators, with the establishment of the ICC. The book provides context-independent proposals for resolving contradictions between the two principles, suggesting that focusing on timing and sequencing in invoking international R2P and ICC actions could facilitate the easing of tensions. Drawing on examples from Uganda, Kenya, and Darfur, the book applies International Relations concepts and theories in order to deepen our understanding of international responses to mass atrocities. Ultimately the book concludes that a 'Protection First, Justice Later' sequence approach is necessary for managing the tension and facilitating more effective and consistent international responses.
This book makes an important contribution to discussions and debates surrounding international responses to genocide and mass atrocities. It will be of special interest to scholars, students and policymakers in International Relations, Global Governance, African Studies, International Development, Human Rights and International Criminal Law.