No more than a few months ago, on December 17, 2013, the UN launched a fresh initiative to boost human rights safeguards around the world. Rights up Front is a direct result of experience at the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2009, and an indirect consequence of harrowing humanitarian disasters in Rwanda and Srebrenica in the mid-1990s.

In Sri Lanka, a 26-year conflict between the national army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (or Tamil Tigers) reached an explosive conclusion in May 2009. Some 40,000 civilians are thought to have died during brutal government bombing campaigns even targeting hospitals. Aid agency personnel, including a significant UN contingent, were forced out of the main war zone and unable to respond to, or convey, the full extent of the humanitarian crisis. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon thus invited Charles Petrie, currently leading MPSI, to chair an internal review panel. Its November 2012 report charged the UN with “systemic failure”.

Rights up Front is an attempt to address that lapse. It lists six actions designed to ensure that in future UN officials will be able to present evidence of abuse to host states and the UN Secretariat, and craft an effective response. Driving this approach is an awareness, fed by many historical lessons, of the importance of detecting early warning signs of potential mass atrocities.

Standing behind Rights up Front are the UN’s three R2P pillars. One, states are responsible for protecting all citizens from four designated mass atrocity crimes. Two, in cases of apparent slippage the international community must remind states of their responsibilities and offer assistance. Three, when faced with state inability or unwillingness to fulfill its duty of protection, the international community must step in.

Myanmar is currently a pillar two R2P state, with mounting evidence of especially troubling conditions in Rakhine State. Urgent human rights concern is properly being voiced in international society, through for instance a US congressional panel that met last week. As the situation inside the country unfolds, however, a necessary requirement for global monitoring is access to accurate information on the ground. A necessary condition of protection is presence.

At a time when first MSF and then other aid agencies are being driven from Rakhine State by aggressive public protest sometimes descending into violence, a UN mission is absolutely indispensable. Without that, it is impossible to implement the Rights up Front policy of relaying any evidence of atrocity crimes to relevant authorities inside and outside Myanmar, and mounting an appropriate response. Working closely with central and provincial officials to sustain the UN mandate is therefore now a top priority of international engagement.