On the morning of 26 March 2004, members of the United Nations (UN) community shared a somber minute of silence to honor the over 800,000 victims of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Thus began the Memorial Conference on the Rwandan Genocide, which was jointly organized by the governments of Rwanda and Canada to ensure that the lives lost in Rwanda are remembered and to examine the continuing implications of the Rwanda tragedy for the international community. The conference was organized on the eve of 7 April 2004, which was designated by the UN General Assembly as the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide in Rwanda. Participants noted the importance of drawing attention to a new normative framework-the principles of Responsibility to Protect- which is outlined in the final report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty and addresses the policy dilemma of how the international community should protect the lives of civilians from genocide, war crimes, or gross and systematic violations of humanitarian law.