to respond to the challenge laid down by Kofi Annan, and to find a way past the agonizing consensus-free zone of the 1990s. I do not pretend for a moment that we have yet solved the problem of mass atrocity crimes once and for all -- how could I in the face of the totally unresolved mess in Syria? And there are innumerable implementation problems that will continue to arise every time the principle is invoked. But the reality is that we are closer to consensus now on the nature and extent of the international responsibility to respond to these crimes than we have ever been. The Commission report took the whole debate in a new, and what is now acknowledged to be much more productive, direction, in three main ways: First, presentationally, by changing the language of the debate:  turning "the right to intervene" into "the responsibility to protect", and re-characterizing the issue as not being about the "right" of any states, particularly large and powerful ones, to throw their weight around militarily, but rather the "responsibility" of all states to act to protect their own and other peoples at risk of suffering from mass atrocity crimes. Secondly, by broadening the range of actors in the frame. Whereas "the right to intervene" focused just on the international response -- and by those capable and willing to apply military force -- R2P involves three distinct levels of state responsibility. The primary responsibility is that of the sovereign state itself to