Responsibility to Protect

The ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) is a way of conceptualizing the nature of sovereignty that has potentially far-reaching consequences for humanitarianism. The R2P doctrine asserts that the rights and privileges of sovereignty, including protection from external intervention, should only be afforded to those states that offer a reasonable level of protection from harm to their citizens. Despite a relatively widespread international acceptance of this assertion, at least at the level of rhetoric, there has been a great deal of disagreement over the details of the meaning of R2P, its politics and its implications. This chapter outlines the main fault lines in the conceptualization and use of R2P and evaluates its impact on international politics in the decade since the core principles of the doctrine were acceded to at the 2005 United Nations World Summit. It argues that R2P has led to improvements, in humanitarian terms, to the positions one would have expected the international community to have taken prior to the World Summit, with increased focus on civilian protection. However, it concludes by noting that the pillar 3 intervention provisions of R2P remain deeply controversial, and therefore that R2P advocates should work to strengthen the Responsibility to Prevent.