317 Beatriz Vázquez Rodríguez Spain and the Responsibility to Protect:... SPAIN’S POSITION IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY AS REGARDS THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT Spain has upheld its position of commitment to the responsibility to protect since the enshrinement of the concept in 2005; thus, during the high-level plenary meeting convened on the occasion of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the United Na-tions, our state recognised that serious violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law require a decisive, collective and solidary response, which would also necessitate a reform of the United Nations bodies to adapt them to their new missions2. It should therefore come as no surprise that, when the interactive dialogues began in 2009 as a result of the presentation of the Secretary General’s first report on the subject, the Spanish delegation showed its full commitment to the concept, as was reflected in paragraphs 138 and 139 of the Outcome Document of the World Summit, calling upon other delegations to: « (…) codify the manner of applying the concept through the length and breadth of the three pillars that the Outcome Document itself identifies»3. On the occasion of the 2011 dialogue on «the role of regional and sub-regional arrangements in implementing the Responsibility to Protect», Spain demonstrated due diligence as regards the application of the concept in the internal arena by infor-ming other states of the actions that Spain has implemented to make the principle operative. Among these actions are the inclusion of the responsibility to protect in the principles of Spain’s international operations, mainly through its inclusion in the Spanish Security Strategy. The Spanish representative spoke of the «drafting of a na-tional report on our activities in the area of the responsibility to protect, legislative developments and the competencies of the different government bodies» 4. This report has, unfortunately, still not seen the light of day. In the debates that took place over the following two years, the Spanish delegation reiterated its commitment to the responsibility to protect and referred to different national legal texts to demonstrate said commitment to the concept. In particular, on the occasion of the 2013 interactive dialogue, entitled «Responsibility to Protect: State Responsibility and Prevention», Spain referred to the reform of the Spanish Criminal Code as an example of best practice as it contains new provisions that punish those who publicly incite hate as well as criminalising those who publicly deny or praise 2 A/60/PV.4, General Assembly, 14 September 2005, p. 15. 3 A/63/PV.97, General Assembly, 23 July 2009, p. 16. 4 Intervention by the Spanish representative in the informal interactive dialogue of the General Assembly on «the role of regional and sub-regional arrangements in implementing the Responsibility to Protect», 12 July 2011, <http://responsibilitytoprotect.org/Spain.pdf> Consulted: 4 December 2015. http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee
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