North Korea and Crimes against Humanity
North Korea has long proven unable and unwilling to protect its citizens. Currently, North Korea faces a deteriorating situation marked by chronic humanitarian disasters and human rights violations within the state’s political detention camp system. The inhumane treatment of citizens inside these camps, as well as violations during the sentencing and deportation process, has become a symbol of North Korea’s crimes against humanity. The international community should address North Korea’s human rights abuses within the context of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P). The R2P doctrine affirms that each state has the responsibility to protect its population from four mass atrocity crimes including ‘crimes against humanity’. As such, this article focuses on North Korea’s fundamental responsibility to protect its citizens from crimes against humanity, and the international community’s commitment to assist North Korea in fulfilling this obligation. In considering a policy option to improve North Korea’s human rights conditions within the context of R2P, the international community needs to assist the North Korean government to bring an end to further instances of crimes against humanity.
Libya and the Responsibility to Protect: The Exception and the Norm
The Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) played an important role in shaping the world's response to actual and threatened atrocities in Libya. Not least, the adoption of Resolution 1973 by the UN Security Council on May 17, 2011, approving a no-fly zone over Libya and calling for “all necessary measures” to protect civilians, reflected a change in the Council's attitude toward the use of force for human protection purposes; and the role played by the UN's new Joint Office on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect points toward the potential for this new capacity to identify threats of mass atrocities and to focus the UN's attention on preventing them. Given the reluctance of both the Security Council and the wider UN membership even to discuss RtoP in the years immediately following the 2005 World Summit—the High-level Plenary Meeting of the 60th Session of the General Assembly that gave birth to RtoP—these two facts suggest that significant progress has been made thanks to the astute stewardship of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is personally committed to the principle. Where it was once a term of art employed by a handful of like-minded countries, activists, and scholars, but regarded with suspicion by much of the rest of the world, RtoP has become a commonly accepted frame of reference for preventing and responding to mass atrocities.
Dating of Historical Manuscripts Using Spectrometric Methods: A Mini-Review
An overview is provided of spectrometric methods useful for age estimation of historical manuscripts (medieval ones in particular), in order to confirm their authenticity. Individual methods (infrared and Raman spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, atomic emission spectroscopy, X-ray spectroscopy, and electron scanning microscopy) are discussed and examples of their application described. The following general strategy can be recommended for dating and/or authenticating of historical manuscripts. First of all, the pigment analysis should be carried out using Raman spectroscopy (distinguishing the period and modern pigments), followed by PIXE ink analysis (solving the question of ink homogeneity). Finally, the radiocarbon dating of the writing support, potentially supplemented by the ink dating using scanning Auger microscopy should be performed.