321 Beatriz Vázquez Rodríguez Spain and the Responsibility to Protect:... Secondly, within the member states of the group, different meetings are organi-sed in parallel on the responsibility to protect, with the aim of continuing to discuss throughout the year the elements of the concept that present most difficulties for im-plementation. They have also reported on crisis situations, such as in the case of Libya, whereby they jointly called upon: «(…) all the relevant bodies of the United Nations to take urgent and appropriate measure to put into practice the commitment of the international community to the Responsibility to Protect»14. In this way, they provide greater visibility, proximity and knowledge of the respon-sibility to protect at the national and regional level. Another important aspect of this group of friends is that it provides political and financial support to the Secretary General’s special advisers for the prevention of ge-nocide and the responsibility to protect. Accordingly, it has become an important pressure group in the debates in the Fifth Committee of the General Assembly, with the aim of introducing the concept of the responsibility to protect into the structure of the United Nations, obtaining financing for the joint office of the special advisers, fighting against the reluctance and steadfast opposition of some states that have tried to ensure that the activities of the abovementioned office are not funded by the United Nations budget. From another angle, it is also important to mention the relevant role that the group of friends of the responsibility to protect could play in the Security Council. Bearing in mind that three of the permanent members of the Security Council are already part of the group of friends, the fact of having states that support this group in the different rotations of the non-permanent seats on the Security Council, would suggest a greater commitment to integrating the language of the responsibility to protect in Security Council resolutions. Of the non-permanent members elected for the period 2015-2015, currently only Spain and New Zealand belong to this group. In addition to the activities of this group of friends, there exists another initiative focused on a more national perspective, but that is intricately linked to the previous initiative, as making the responsibility to protect a reality implies developing insti-tutional capabilities at various levels, meaning that governments also need to make efforts at developing the concept at the domestic level. Accordingly, there is a push to create national focal points within states with the primary objective of promoting the responsibility to protect within the national sphere, advancing at the same time international cooperation through participation in the global network for the respon- 14 Statement by the Group of Friends on Responsibility to Protect on the situation in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 1 March, 2011, <http://fnnewyork.um.dk/en/statements/newsdisplaypage/?newsid=62b7806e-ecbd- 4ca7-b326-0ee71d654108>, Consulted: 4 December 2015. http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee
REVISTA IEEE 8
To see the actual publication please follow the link above