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The Forum: 28/05/2011 GMT

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28/05/2011 GMT

BBC World Service - The Forum, 28/05/2011 GMT

What are our obligations to others, on an international and individual level?

Canadian academic, Jennifer Welsh, Somali government minister, Maryan Qasim and American soldier scholar, Lt Col Shannon Beebe discuss Responsibility to Protect.

It's a term that's been mentioned a lot recently but what exactly do we mean by ‘Responsibility to Protect’? Are we all legally or morally obligated to help citizens in other countries who are at risk? Or is this just a vague sense of our shared humanity? Canadian professor Jennifer Welsh explores the moral and legal conundrums.

American scholar soldier Lt Col Shannon Beebe tells us that if we really are serious about protecting the vulnerable, we need to change the way we think about security: he says the way forward is what he calls sustainable security.

And Somalia's Minister for Women's Development Maryan Qasim tells us why she feels responsible for the lives of Somali women and children and how she tries to change them.

Illustration by Emily Kasriel: responsibility to protect - but how is that generosity received?

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