CCR2P ESSAY CONTEST
The Canadian Centre for Responsibility to Protect, based at the Munk School of Global Affairs, is pleased to announce its inaugural essay contest on Responsibility to Protect this spring!
Candidates must choose one of the following questions pertaining to R2P and submit an original academic paper meeting all the guidelines below.
Essay Questions (Choose only one question to answer):
1) The Canadian government once played an incredibly important role in giving birth to the R2P principle, through its sponsorship of the ICISS board and various advocacy efforts at the 2005 World Summit. Analyze the evolution of Canadian foreign policy with regard to R2P from 2001-2013 and suggest ways in which various branches of the government (judiciary, parliamentary and executive) could help with the implementation of R2P.
2) It is estimated that at least 70,000 people have been killed in Syria and large-scale human rights violations, including torture and execution of prisoners continue to take place. Many Syrians are trying desperately to escape, though many are left to face mass human atrocities. The situation in Syria clearly violates our responsibilities under refugee law, humanitarian law, human rights law, and international criminal law yet the international community has remained deadlocked over geopolitical interests. How should the international community uphold its commitment to R2P in the Syrian crisis?
3) Prevention is better than cure, especially for R2P crimes that are time-sensitive and extremely costly in human and material terms. If you were asked to design a “Prevention Strategy for R2P,” what would you include?
Submission deadline: Oct 31, 2013 at 11:59pm
Submission instructions: E-mail to recruiting@ccr2p.org as a word document or a PDF with word count indicated at the end. 1” margin on all sides, Times New Romans font, size 12. Double-spaced. Please include your contact information on the title page, as well as your institutional affiliation.
The winner will be awarded at the CCR2P’s annual conference in the spring of 2014.
PRIZE: $500 & A plaque of honour issued by the Canadian Centre for R2P. The winner will be given a preference for an internship position at the CCR2P in the summer of 2014 if he/she wishes. The winning entry will be published in the CCR2P’s Journal.
Submission Guidelines:
- This essay contest is open to any registered undergraduate or graduate students enrolled in a recognized university anywhere in the world.
- Entries can be written in English, French, Spanish or Korean.
- The submission must include a cover letter including the application’s full name, student number, program/year, name of the university, institutional e-mail address and phone number. If available, a letter from the instructor who graded the paper and endorsing the submission is also welcome.
- Submissions should take the form of either a research essay or policy paper. A policy paper should discuss a specific current problem and propose a solution. Policy papers differ from research papers in that the former are problem-solving rather than explanatory.
- Entries cannot exceed 5,000 words, excluding footnotes.
- All submissions must include footnotes and a bibliography in the correct Chicago style. Candidates may submit their papers from courses in Humanities or Social Sciences discipline, inter-disciplinary programmes, or law school. If it has already been graded, only the papers with a grade of A or higher should be submitted for consideration.
- One entry per candidate. Further submissions will not be accepted.
- Failure to follow these guidelines will lead to disqualification from the contest.
- Essays will be judged on originality, analytical incisiveness, creativity, clarity of writing and understanding of existing scholarship and debates on R2P.
- All submissions become the property of the Canadian Centre for R2P and will not be returned.
About the CCR2P
Canadian Centre for Responsibility to Protect is a non-profit, non-partisan research organization. Based at Munk School of Global Affairs of the University of Toronto, the CCR2P has five core mandates:
1) To conduct research on the normative, conceptual and political dimensions of the R2P;
2) To trace the evolution of the Canadian government’s policies with regards to the R2P;
3) To serve as a hub for information, research and analyses on R2P;
4) To communicate its R2P-related findings with the academic community, political actors, civil society groups and the general public on a regular basis; and
5) To provide a forum for public discussion and debates on R2P.
We invite you to find out more about CCR2P at ccr2p.org
Questions?
A .pdf version of this post is available here.