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

This book examines core thematic approaches to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and analyzes case studies regarding the implementation of this important global norm. The volume analyzes this process at international, regional and local levels, and identifies an urgent need to progress from conceptual debates towards implementation in practice, in order to understand how to operationalize the preventive dimension of the R2P. It argues that R2P implementation necessarily entails the efforts of actors across governance levels, and that it is more effective when integrated into existing sites of practice aimed at strengthening human rights and accountability for populations in atrocity risk situations. The book addresses R2P implementation in the context of agendas such as resilience, gender, development cooperation, human rights, transitional justice, peacekeeping and civil-military relations. It details progress and challenges for implementation in the United Nations, regionally in Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia, and through national atrocity prevention architectures. The volume provides readers with a breadth of understanding in terms of both the development and current status of the R2P norm, and practical tools for advancing its implementation. This book will be of much interest to students of the Responsibility to Protect, Human Rights, Peace Studies, and International Relations in general.

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.

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.

The high civilian death toll in modern, protracted conflicts such as those in Syria or Iraq indicate the limits of international law in offering protections to civilians at risk. A recent conference of states convened by the International Committee of the Red Cross referred to 'an institutional vacuum in the area of international humanitarian law implementation'. Yet both international humanitarian law and the law of human rights establish a series of rights intended to protect civilians. But which law or laws apply in a particular situation, and what are the obstacles to their implementation? How can the law offer greater protections to civilians caught up in new methods of warfare, such as drone strikes, or targeted by new forms of military organisation, such as transnational armed groups? Can the implementation gap be filled by the growing use of human rights courts to remedy violations of the laws of armed conflict, or are new instruments or mechanisms of civilian legal protection needed? This volume brings together contributions from leading academic authorities and legal practitioners on the situation of civilians in the grey zone between human rights and the laws of war. The chapters in Part 1 address key contested or boundary issues in defining the rights of civilians or non-combatants in today's conflicts. Those in Part 2 examine remedies and current mechanisms for redress both at the international and national level, and those in Part 3 assess prospects for the development of new mechanisms for addressing violations. As military intervention to protect civilians remains contested, this volume looks at the potential for developing alternative approaches to the protection of civilians and their rights.

"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 provides a systematic analysis of reform measures aimed at strengthening the implementation of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) doctrine, utilising a cosmopolitan lens. In 2005, member states of the United Nations (UN) accepted a ‘Responsibility to Protect’ against four mass atrocity crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing. Despite this commitment, mass atrocities remain a pervasive aspect of the international landscape. In addressing R2P reform, the book utilises a ‘transitional cosmopolitan’ lens. The aim of this transitional cosmopolitan approach is to promote incremental progress towards solving moral problems by operating within particular contexts and practical barriers to change. Three areas for reform are explored: the UN Security Council P5’s power of veto, to prevent the veto obstructing timely and decisive R2P response action; the powers of the UN General Assembly as an alternative means for responding to mass atrocity situations; and the establishment of an ‘R2P Commission’ to hold states accountable for their R2P commitments. These are not advocated as the definitive areas for R2P reform. However, each of the recommendations made can contribute at least some positive progress towards a more cosmopolitan application of the R2P that would help in curbing mass atrocity and improving the protection of fundamental human rights. This book will be of much interest to students of the Responsibility to Protect, genocide, humanitarian protection, and International Relations in general.