The Responsibility To Protect Twenty Years On

This book focuses on measures pertaining to the three-pillar implementation strategy of R2P and examines how and to what extent the three pillars have been practised. Rich in its geographical scope, this edited book provides a critical analysis of R2P practice over the last two decades by focusing on representative cases from different regions. Analysing not only recent and/or underexplored cases but also widely studied cases from a fresh and alternative perspective, it sheds light on the depth and scope of the norm as well as the variety of actors involved and how they impact R2P practice. Diverging from most accounts, this edited book does not approach the cases as a ‘success’ or ‘failure’ of R2P. By studying the background to the conflicts and making assessments on a pillar-by-pillar basis, each chapter addresses the root causes, traces the process of implementation, investigates the actions of the actors involved, identifies elements of success and failure and finally questions the sustainability of the protection provided to date. Meanwhile, the conceptual chapters complement the case analyses through an overall evaluation of R2P’s first two decades and the progress achieved so far with the aim to draw lessons for future implementations of R2P.

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle is the international community's major response to the problem of genocide and mass atrocities - a problem seen in Bosnia, Rwanda and more recently in Syria. This book argues that although it is far from perfect R2P offers the best chance we have of building an international community that works to prevent these crimes and protect vulnerable populations. To make this argument, the book sets out the logic of R2P and its key ambitions, examines some of the critiques of the principle and its implementation in situations such as Libya, and sets out ways of overcoming some of the practical problems associated with moving this principle from words into deeds.

De tragische gebeurtenissen in Rwanda, Srebrenica en Kosovo hebben geleid0tot een herbezinning over de rol en verantwoordelijkheid van de internationale gemeenschap. In het beginsel Responsibility to Protect (R2P), dat in 2005 door de wereldleiders werd omarmd, hebben individuele staten nog steeds de primaire verantwoordelijkheid voor de bescherming van hun inwoners. Maar als ze die verantwoordelijkheid niet kunnen of willen nemen, komt de verantwoordelijkheid bij de internationale gemeenschap te liggen. R2P heeft de ambitie om herhaling van Rwanda, Srebrenica en Kosovo te voorkomen, maar er bestaat nog grote onduidelijkheid over inhoud en potentieel van dit beginsel. Deze bundel verkent R2P als moreel, politiek en juridisch beginsel en onderzoekt hoe de Verenigde Naties, de Europese Unie, individuele staten en NGO's R2P kunnen gebruiken om ernstige mensenrechtenschendingen te voorkomen.

Responsibility to Protect: Research, bibliography, background. Supplementary volume to the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty

In 2005, the international community made a landmark commitment to prevent mass atrocities by unanimously adopting the UN’s “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) principle. As often as not, however, R2P has failed to translate into decisive action. Why does this gap persist between the world’s normative pledges to R2P and its ability to make it a daily lived reality? In this new book, leading global authorities on humanitarian protection Alex Bellamy and Edward Luck offer a probing and in-depth response to this fundamental question, calling for a more comprehensive approach to the practice of R2P – one that moves beyond states and the UN to include the full range of actors that play a role in protecting vulnerable populations. Drawing on cases from the Middle East to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, they examine the forces and conditions that produce atrocity crimes and the challenge of responding to them quickly and effectively. Ultimately, they advocate both for emergency policies to temporarily stop carnage and for policies leading to sustainable change within societies and governments. Only by introducing these additional elements to the R2P toolkit will the failures associated with humanitarian crises like Syria and Libya become a thing of the past.

This book presents the views of various international law and human rights experts on the contested meaning, scope of application, value and viability of R2P; the principle of the Responsibility to Protect . R2P refers to the notion that the international community has a legal responsibility to protect civilians against the potential or ongoing occurrence of the mass atrocity crimes of genocide, large scale war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. R2P allows for intervention where the individual State is unable or unwilling to so protect its people or is in fact a perpetrator. The book addresses also the controversial issue of whether intervention by States implementing R2P with or without the endorsement of the United Nations Security Council constitutes a State act of aggression or instead is legally justified and not an infringement on the offending State’s sovereign jurisdiction. The adverse impact on global peace and security of the failure to protect civilians from mass atrocity crimes has put in stark relief the need to address anew the principle of ‘responsibility to protect’ and the feasibility and wisdom of its application and this book is a significant contribution to that effort. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Human Rights.

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is intended to provide an effective framework for responding to crimes of genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It is a response to the many conscious-shocking cases where atrocities - on the worst scale - have occurred even during the post 1945 period when the United Nations was built to save us all from the scourge of genocide. The R2P concept accords to sovereign states and international institutions a responsibility to assist peoples who are at risk - or experiencing - the worst atrocities. R2P maintains that collective action should be taken by members of the United Nations to prevent or halt such gross violations of basic human rights. This Handbook, containing contributions from leading theorists, and practitioners (including former foreign ministers and special advisors), examines the progress that has been made in the last 10 years; it also looks forward to likely developments in the next decade.

"Never again!" the world has vowed time and again since the Holocaust. Yet genocide, ethnic cleansing, and other mass atrocity crimes continue to shock our consciences—from the killing fields of Cambodia to the machetes of Rwanda to the agony of Darfur. Gareth Evans has grappled with these issues firsthand. As Australian foreign minister, he was a key broker of the United Nations peace plan for Cambodia. As president of the International Crisis Group, he now works on the prevention and resolution of scores of conflicts and crises worldwide. The primary architect of and leading authority on the Responsibility to Protect ("R2P"), he shows here how this new international norm can once and for all prevent a return to the killing fields. The Responsibility to Protect captures a simple and powerful idea. The primary responsibility for protecting its own people from mass atrocity crimes lies with the state itself. State sovereignty implies responsibility, not a license to kill. But when a state is unwilling or unable to halt or avert such crimes, the wider international community then has a collective responsibility to take whatever action is necessary. R2P emphasizes preventive action above all. That includes assistance for states struggling to contain potential crises and for effective rebuilding after a crisis or conflict to tackle its underlying causes. R2P's primary tools are persuasion and support, not military or other coercion. But sometimes it is right to fight: faced with another Rwanda, the world cannot just stand by. R2P was unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit. But many misunderstandings persist about its scope and limits. And much remains to be done to solidify political support and to build institutional capacity. Evans shows, compellingly, how big a break R2P represents from the past, and how, with its acceptance in principle and effective application in practice, the promise of "Never

This book explores attempts to develop a more acceptable account of the principles and mechanisms associated with humanitarian intervention, which has become known as the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P). Cases of genocide and mass violence have raised endless debates about the theory and practice of humanitarian intervention to save innocent lives. Since the humanitarian tragedies in Rwanda, Burundi, Bosnia, Kosovo and elsewhere, states have begun advocating a right to undertake interventions to stop mass violations of human rights from occurring. Their central concern rests with whether the UN’s current regulations on the use of force meet the challenges of the post-Cold War world, and in particular the demands of addressing humanitarian emergencies. International actors tend to agree that killing civilians as a necessary part of state formation is no longer acceptable, nor is standing by idly in the face of massive violations of human rights. And yet, respect for the sovereign rights of states remains central among the ordering principles of the international community. How can populations affected by egregious human rights violations be protected? How can the legal constraints on the use of force and respect for state sovereignty be reconciled with the international community’s willingness and readiness to take action in such instances? And more importantly, how can protection be offered when the Security Council, which is responsible for authorizing the use of force when threats to international peace and security occur, is paralyzed? The author addresses these issues, arguing that R2P is the best framework available at present to move the humanitarian intervention debate forward. This book will be of interest to students of the responsibility to protect, war and conflict studies, human security, international organisations, security studies and IR in general.

In 2011, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1973, authorizing its member states to take measures to protect Libyan civilians from Muammar Gadhafi’s forces. In invoking the “responsibility to protect,” the resolution draws on the principle that sovereign states are responsible and accountable to the international community for the protection of their populations and that the international community can act to protect populations when national authorities fail to do so. The idea that sovereignty includes the responsibility to protect is often seen as a departure from the classic definition, but it actually has deep historical roots. In Sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect, Luke Glanville argues that this responsibility extends back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and that states have since been accountable for this responsibility to God, the people, and the international community. Over time, the right to national self-governance came to take priority over the protection of individual liberties, but the noninterventionist understanding of sovereignty was only firmly established in the twentieth century, and it remained for only a few decades before it was challenged by renewed claims that sovereigns are responsible for protection. Glanville traces the relationship between sovereignty and responsibility from the early modern period to the present day, and offers a new history with profound implications for the present.