LISBON (AFP) - UN refugee agency chief Antonio Guterres lamented Monday that the duty once felt by the international community to protect people at risk was losing ground to the idea of national sovereignty.
"Today, unfortunately, the concept of 'responsibility to protect', which established itself a while ago is losing strength in the face of a reassertion of national sovereignty," he said in interviews with Portuguese media, referring to the UN interventions in the 1990s in Kosovo and Bosnia.
"We must create a balance between State sovereignty and individual sovereignty," he added, insisting that "the responsibility of the international community when it comes to certain cases of genocide and widespread ethnic cleansing needs to be translated into practice."