(MENAFN- Swissinfo) Atrocity crimes are unfolding with impunity in Gaza, Sudan and Myanmar. For Mô Bleeker, the UN Secretary-General's Special Advisor on the Responsibility to Protect, the task has never felt more urgent – or more difficult. This content was published on November 14, 2025 - 09:00 11 minutes

Julia is a widely travelled British radio and print journalist, specialized in African affairs and transitional justice.

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“Even when it's very hard, you have to go on. We are living in a very critical moment.”

Sitting by Lake Neuchâtel near her home in Switzerland, Mô Bleeker, the UN Secretary-General's Special Advisor on the Responsibility to Protect, reflects on a turning point in global governance that marked a“very important normative shift”, meant to build a world less defined by conflict and cruelty.

Twenty years ago, all UN heads of state and government endorsed the Responsibility to Protect. The commitment redefined sovereignty – once understood mainly as a right of non-interference – as a duty to protect populations and prevent atrocity crimes. These include genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

Today, that principle is at the heart of her work. Bleeker was appointed in March 2024 as the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect. Her role involves advising Secretary-General António Guterres on when to raise the alarm about situations where atrocity crimes are occurring or may occur.

“The Responsibility to Protect principle indicates a red line where these crimes shall no more happen and it is the responsibility of States to prevent them, stop them if they are happening and protect the population who may be affected,” says Bleeker.

Under this principle, each UN member state has the primary responsibility to protect its own population. When states are unwilling or unable to do so, the UN Security Council has the responsibility to respond and ensure protection. Yet while the principle is clear, its implementation remains fraught.

Lack of implementation

“Unfortunately, what we see is a lack of implementation and a lack of political will,” Bleeker says.

That challenge, she adds, is not unique to the Responsibility to Protect. The same gap between commitment and action can be seen in other areas where the international community has made promises, including human rights, international humanitarian law and climate change.

She points to Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and Myanmar as stark examples of the world's failure to halt wars marked by atrocity crimes or credible allegations of them.

In Gaza, more than 67,000 people have been killed since October 7, 2023, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, after Israel launched a military offensive in response to Hamas's attacks and hostage-taking. There are reports of malnutrition-related deaths as Israel cut off aid, while much of the civilian infrastructure has been destroyed.

In UkraineExternal link, tens of thousands of civilians have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. The war has been marked by indiscriminate attack on civilians, torture, sexual violence, and the deportation of children – further examples of the international community's failure to uphold its responsibility to protect.

In SudanExternal link, more than 150,000 people have been killed since it plunged into civil war in April 2023, with some 12 million displaced. Civilians there have endured mass killings, ethnic cleansing, sexual violence, torture, and deliberate starvation as rival forces wage war with impunity and humanitarian access remains blocked.

Some 1 million Rohingya refugees from MyanmarExternal link remain in camps in Bangladesh after a military clampdown in 2017 described by the UN as ethnic cleansing. After a military coup on February 1, 2021, Myanmar has plunged into violence and instability.

Failure to stop this long list of atrocities, Bleeker says, reflects deep divisions within the international system itself. She points to the lack of consensus in the UN Security Council, where the five permanent members – the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom – each hold veto power.

“It would be beautiful if there were a consensus in the UN Security Council, particularly when there are alleged risks of atrocity crimes or when they are being committed, but that is currently not the case,” she remarks.

In September, for example, the US used its veto power for the sixth timeExternal link to block a Security Council resolution on Gaza calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and release of all hostages. Russia has vetoedExternal link Security Council resolutions condemning its war and military activities in Ukraine, while China used its vetoExternal link to block a UN condemnation of the military coup in Myanmar.

“Unfortunately, what we see is a lack of implementation and a lack of political will,” Mo Bleeker. Julia Crawford / SWI swissinfo Geopolitical divides and double standards

Asked why the international community has failed to act in places like Gaza or Sudan, she points to an accumulation of factors, not least the deep geopolitical divides paralysing collective action.

“What we are also seeing is a very negative dynamic – one that pushes, more and more, towards violations of international humanitarian law, human rights abuses, and commission of atrocity crimes with total impunity,” she says.“What we are facing now is a moment where everything we have built over those decades is being called into question.”

The United Nations was born after the Second World War, with the aim of establishing lasting peace. A system of international law was meant to ensure an end to atrocity crimes and State aggression. However, 80 years on, rising extremism and the return of open conflicts poses an existential threat to this multilateral system and the UN itself.

Western powers have imposed successive sanctions on Russia for its war in Ukraine, yet little has been done to halt the devastation in Gaza or Sudan. Does this, in her view, reflect a problem of double standards?

“Yes, there are double standards,” she replies,“and that's a major problem. The United Nations is a huge machinery created by states. States take decisions in the General Assembly on policies, budgets, and so on.

States are often more sensitive to the suffering in one situation than another – or their national interest, you may say. I would say that's a very normal problem. But at the current scale, and given the gravity of the consequences, it is unbearable.”

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