Responsibility and engagement

As part of my own academic work on Sudan and Darfur I keep coming across the word 'responsibility,' in the context of the general responsibility to protect that is increasingly becoming a rhetorical norms for the world community. Empirical studies are lacking on whether the incidence of humanitarian interventions are on the rise or not; one of the problems is that under the Cold War the two powers took care of their clients and the problems of their clients, while under the new order the U.N. and regional organizations are now doing that work, to an increaing degree, and of course the nature of conflicts changed to more violent and civilian-targeting civil wars.

I find it interesting then that the theme of responsibility and engagement is also preoccupying academia and curricular revision. The AACU has launched a new initiative called Core Commitments to get 20 schools onboard to create and pilot some new ideas in this area. Their website is a good introduction.