About R2P
A brief introduction to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
For the first time in history, UN member states have a globally endorsed framework for action to prevent genocide and related crimes against humanity. The Responsibility to Protect doctrine (R2P or RtoP), adopted at the 2005 UN General Assembly, redefines state sovereignty to include the duty of every state to protect its own population from atrocities including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Where states fail to meet that obligation, the international community must act collectively, using all appropriate means. As the R2P doctrine emphasises, successful action should be preventive, not reactive; this means paying earlier attention to underlying risks such as the marginalization of minorities.
R2P has been gaining recognition and support and has good prospects of emerging as customary international law. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has voiced his “deep and enduring commitment“, and UN member states are talking constructively, but it is proving difficult to put the principles into effective practice. Apparent indifference to mass atrocities deeply damages the credibility of all implicated states and institutions; ending that should concern us all.
To assist further reading, we have compiled some links to good information resources on R2P. A good starting point is this list of core R2P documents (from the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect). The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect has produced a useful Primer and list of Frequently Made Assertions on R2P (both PDFs). The Primer concludes:
“Crises threatening large-scale loss of life are bound to continue to arise, and with them debates over[...] the most appropriate response[....] The international community of states will encounter extremely difficult and painful questions about the applicability of R2P, which only demonstrates the need for clarity over the reach and limits of this new principle.
“The attempt to forge political consensus in any given case will depend in part on reaching agreement over exactly what it was that the states agreed to do wwhen they adopted R2P in 2005. But it will depend as well on an evolution of public sentiment. Leaders will take real risks only if citizens demand it; and publics have only recently begun to demand that their leaders confront the issue of human rights violations abroad. As the clamor grows, so will the likelihood of action.”