Responsibility to Protect: From Principle to Practice

The tragic events in the 1990s in Rwanda, Srebrenica and Kosovo, and the crisis in Libya in 2011 have triggered a fundamental rethinking of the role and responsibility of the international community. It is now accepted that while individual states continue to bear the primary responsibility to protect their populations against genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and war crimes within their boundaries, the international community should step in when the state is unable or unwilling to provide such protection. The principle of the Responsibility to Protect, or RtoP, reflects this recognition, and provides the normative basis for involvement of the international community in cases of mass atrocities. This thoughtful work is a major contribution towards clarifying what RtoP can offer, moving from principle to practice. It spans the disciplines of international law, international relations, and moral philosophy.

Table of Contents:
Responsibility to Protect - 2 Table of Contents - 6 Preface - 10 List of Abbreviations - 12 Introduction - 14 1 The 2007-08 Post-Election Crisis in Kenya A Success Story for the Responsibility to Protect? - 28 Part I The Emergence of the Responsibility to Protect - 38 2 The Responsibility to Protect: The Journey - 40 3 Reconstituting Humanity as Responsibility?The 'Turn to History' in International Law and the Responsibility to Protect - 48 4 Canada's Role in the Conceptual Impetus of the Responsibility to Protect and Current Contributions - 62 5 The Responsibility to Protect within the Security Council's Open Debates on the Protection of Civilians A Growing Culture of Protection - 72 Part II The Responsibility to Protect under International Law - 84 6 The Scope of the Crimes Triggering the Responsibility to Protect - 86 7 The Responsibility to Protect and Common Article 1 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Obligations of Third States - 94 8 The Responsibility to Prevent On the Assumed Legal Nature of Responsibility to Protect and its Relationship with Conflict Prevention - 112 9 The Responsibility to Protect and the Obligations of States and Organisationsunder the Law of International Responsibility - 126 10 Consensual Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect Responsibility to Protect's Place within the Legal Framework of Consensual Intervention in Internal Armed Conflict - 140 Part III Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect - 156 11 Has Humanitarian Intervention Become Part of International Law under the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine? - 158 12 Assigning Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect - 174 13 The Responsibility to Protect and Humanitarian Intervention - 186 Part IV International Organisations and the Responsibility to Protect - 198 14 The Responsibility to Protect and the Permanent Five The Obligation to Give Reasons for a Veto - 200 15 The African Union and the Responsibility to Protect Principles and Limitations - 214 16 ASEAN Responses to the Responsibility to Protect Challenges, Opportunities and Constraints - 238 Part V Implementing the Responsibility to Protect - 272 18 A Responsibility to Protect or Preclude?Examining the Beneficiaries of the Responsibility to Protect - 274 19 The Responsibility to Protect Unilateral Non-Forcible Measures and International Law - 292 20 The Responsibility to Protect Through the International Court of Justice - 306 21 Taking Prevention of Genocide Seriously Media Incitement to Genocide Viewed in the Light of the Responsibility to Protect - 320 22 Contextualising the Prevention of Genocide - 338 23 Ending Our Age of Suffering A Plan to End Genocide - 348 Concluding Observations - 356 List of Contributors - 374 General Index - 380 Index of Treaties and Other International Documents - 384

About the Author :
Julia Hoffmann is assistant professor of Media, Peace and Conflict Studies at the University for Peace in Costa Rica. Andre Nollkaemper is professor of public international law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Amsterdam.