UK to fund Australian scholar’s participation in R2P conference
Essay competition to find Australian student to take part in Responsibility to Protect conference in Cambodia.
Next year is the 10-year anniversary of the unanimous adoption of the principle of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) at the UN World Summit.
To mark the occasion, the British High Commission in Canberra will sponsor an Australian university student to travel to and participate in the ‘Responsibility to Protect at 10 in the Asia-Pacific’ conference taking place in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on 26-27 February 2015.
Tom Burn of the British High Commission’s Foreign & Security Policy Team says: “This conference offers an excellent opportunity to explore how to embed R2P principles throughout the Asia Pacific region and globally. We particularly applaud the inclusion in the conference of a session looking at how R2P can be used to help prevent sexual violence in conflict.”
Tom adds: “We value enormously the engagement we’ve previously had with Australian R2P experts and activists. So we’ve designed our competition to allow us to hear some of the latest ideas and perspectives in response to a question we’ve been thinking about ourselves.”
How to enter the competition
Applicants are asked to submit an essay of no more than 800 words in response to the question:
How best can supporters promote the principle of Responsibility to Protect in Asia over the next 10 years, particularly in the campaign to prevent sexual violence in conflict?
The competition is open to Australian university students. Please submit entries to ppa.canberra@fco.gov.uk by Sunday 14 December.
We plan to invite the winning candidate to Canberra in late January for a day of R2P conversation before he or she travels to Phnom Penh in late February.
Notes
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The sponsorship covers travel, accommodation and living costs for both the pre-conference trip to Canberra and the conference itself.
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This issue of ending sexual violence in conflict continues to be a priority for the UK Government, as demonstrated by the Global Summit on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict which took place in London in June.