Dear [FIRSTNAME],

Welcome to the first quarterly edition of the R2P Coalition's Bulletin!

Following the leadership steps taken by the City Council of the Chicago on 13 September 2006 and the Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago on 16 September 2006, the Illinois General Assembly became the first State-level Legislature to embrace R2P.

• On Sunday 12 November 2006, Juliette Voinov Kohler, Deputy Convenor of the R2P Coalition addressed students about R2P at the STAND's Great Lakes Regional Conference at Northwestern University.
• On 15-17 November 2006, the R2P Coalition co-sponsored the conference The Responsibility to Protect: Engaging America with the International Crisis Group, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern School of Law and the International Human Rights Law Institute of DePaul University.
• On 7 January 2007, celebrating the 144th anniversary of the Emancipation Declaration, R2P Convenor Richard Cooper addressed the members of the Progressive Community Church, The People's Church, Chicago.

The R2P Illinois Universities Student Essay Contest deadline was extended to 30 May 2007.

The R2P Coalition is pleased to welcome a new Steering Committee member. William Schulz, former Director of Amnesty International USA joined the Steering Committee in January 2007. He brings with him an impressive background in human rights activism as well as policy making. William Schulz is currently a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC; a Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government; and an Adjunct Professor at the New School in New York City.

The proposal for an International Marshals Service appeared in the December issue of the Sojourners magazine.

On 13-15 March 2007, the Human Rights Center of the University of California Berkeley, in partnership with Human Rights Watch, Genocide Intervention Network and Humanity United, will hold the conference Stopping Mass Atrocities: An International Conference on the Responsibility to Protect. For more information, contact Camille Crittenden, Executive Director, r2pconference@berkeley.edu