The Responsibility to Protect (R2P or RtoP) is an emerging norm that sovereignty is not a right,
but that states must protect their populations from mass atrocity crimes—namely genocide, crimes
against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing. The R2P has three foundation "pillars".
 1. A state has a responsibility to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, crimes
against humanity, and ethnic cleansing.
 2. The international community has a responsibility to assist the state to fulfill its primary
responsibility.
 3. If the state manifestly fails to protect its citizens from the four above mass atrocities and
peaceful measures have failed, the international community has the responsibility to intervene
through coercive measures such as economic sanctions. Military intervention is considered the last
resort.

While R2P is a norm and not a law, it is firmly grounded in international law, especially the laws
relating to sovereignty, peace and security, human rights and armed conflict. R2P provides a
framework for using tools that already exist, i.e. mediation, early warning mechanisms, economic
sanctioning, and chapter VII powers, to prevent mass atrocities. Civil society organizations,
states, regional organizations, and international institutions all have a role to play in the R2P
process. The authority to employ the last resort and intervene militarily rests solely with United
Nations Security Council.

Criticisms of the R2P include a "moral outrage and hysteria [that] often serve as a pretext for
‘interventions by the civilised world’ or 'the international community' and for ‘humanitarian
interventions’, which often conceal the true strategic motives, and it thus becomes another name
for proxy wars."

Background

The norm of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P or RtoP) was born out of the international
community’s failure to respond to tragedies such as the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the massacre
in Srebrenica in 1995. Kofi Annan, who was Assistant Secretary-General at the UN Department for
Peacekeeping Operations during the Rwandan genocide, realized the international community’s failure
to respond. In 2000, and in his capacity as UN Secretary-General, Annan wrote the report ‘We the
Peoples’ The role of the United Nations in the 21st Century, in which posed the following
questions: “if humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how
should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica — to gross and systematic violations of human rights
that offend every precept of our common humanity?”

ICISS

The Canadian government established the International Commission on Intervention and State
Sovereignty (ICISS) in September 2000 to answer exactly this question. In February 2001, at the
third round table meeting of the ICISS in London, Gareth Evans, Mohamed Sahnoun and Michael
Ignatieff suggested the phrase "responsibility to protect" as a way to avoid the "right to
intervene" or "obligation to intervene" doctrines and yet keep a degree of duty to act to resolve
humanitarian crises.

 In 2001, ICISS released a report titled ‘The Responsibility to Protect’. In a radical
reformulation of the meaning of state sovereignty, the report argued that sovereignty not only
entailed rights, but also responsibilities, specifically a state’s responsibility to protect its
people from major violations of human rights. This idea rested on earlier work by Francis Deng and
Roberta Cohen regarding Internally Displaced Persons. The ICISS report further asserted that where
a state was “unable or unwilling” to protect its people, the responsibility should shift to the
international community and “the principle of non-intervention yields to the international
responsibility to protect.” The ICISS argued that any form of military intervention should be
guided by the following six criteria to be justified as an extraordinary measure of intervention:

1. Just cause – Is the threat a "serious and irreparable harm occurring to human beings"?

2. Right intention – Is the main intention of the military action to prevent human suffering or are
there other motives?

3. Final resort – Has every other measure besides military invention been taken into account? (This
does not mean that every measurement has to be applied and failed, but that there are reasonable
grounds to believe that only military action would work in that situation)

4. Legitimate authority

5. Proportional means – Are the minimum necessary military means applied to secure human
protection?

6. Reasonable prospect – Is it likely that military action will protect human life, and are the
consequences of this action sure not to be worse than no action at all?

African roots

While many critics of the R2P's third pillar claim that R2P is a Western concept, it was the
African Union (AU) that had first pioneered the concept that the international community has a
responsibility to intervene in crisis situations if a state is failing to protect its population
from mass atrocity crimes. The AU incorporated the right to intervene in a member state as
enshrined in Article 4(h) of its Constitutive Act, which states "[t]he right of the Union to
intervene in a Member State pursuant to a decision of the Assembly in respect of grave
circumstances, namely war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity" The AU also adopted the
Ezulwini Consensus in 2005, which welcomed R2P as a tool for the prevention of mass atrocities.

2005 World Summit Outcome Document

As the ICISS report was released in 2001, right around the time of the Second Gulf War, many
thought that would be the end of this new norm. However, in 2005, at the World Summit, where the
largest number of heads of state and government in the history of the UN convened, the
Responsibility to Protect was unanimously adopted. While the outcome was close to the ideas of the
ICISS report, there were some notable differences: the R2P would now only apply to mass atrocity
crimes (genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing), rather than human
rights violations; no mention was made of the criteria of intervention (see above); the UN Security
Council was recognized with being the only body allowed to authorize intervention. The paragraphs
also stress the importance of regional organizations and the role they can play through Chapter
VIII of the UN Charter.

2009 Secretary-General's report

On 12 January 2009, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a report entitled Implementing the
Responsibility to Protect. The report was the first comprehensive document from the UN Secretariat
on the Responsibility to Protect, following Ban's stated commitment to turn the concept into
policy. The Secretary General's report set the tone and the direction for the discussion on the
subject at the UN. The report proposes three-pillar approach to the R2P:
  * Pillar One stresses that states have the primary responsibility to protect their populations
from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

  * Pillar Two addresses the international community's commitment to help states build capacity to
protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against
humanity—and help those under stress before crises and conflicts break out.

  * Pillar Three focuses on the responsibility of international community to act in a timely and
decisive way to prevent and halt genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against
humanity when a state manifestly fails to protect its populations.

The significance of R2P

Anne-Marie Slaughter from Princeton University has called R2P “...the most important shift in our
conception of sovereignty since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.”

Louise Arbour, from the International Crisis Group, said that, "The responsibility to protect is
the most important and imaginative doctrine to emerge on the international scene for decades.”

Francis Deng, former UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, stated that "R2P is one of
the most powerful and promising innovations on the international scene.”

The Security Council

The UN Security Council has reaffirmed its commitment to the R2P in several resolutions. The first
such resolution came in April 2006, when the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) reaffirmed the
provisions of paragraphs 138 and 139 in Resolution 1674. This formalized their support for the R2P.
In 2009, the Council again recognized states' primary responsibility to protect and reaffirmed
paragraphs 138 and 139 in resolution 1894.

Secretary-General reports

In January 2009, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon released the first report on the R2P called
Implementing the Responsibility to Protect. His report led to a debate in the General Assembly in
July 2009 and the first time since 2005 that the General Assembly had come together to discuss the
responsibility to protect. Ninety-four member states spoke. Most supported the R2P principle
although some important concerns were voiced. They discussed how to implement R2P in crisis
situations around the world. The debate highlighted the need for regional organizations like the
African Union to play a strong role in implementing R2P; the need for stronger early warning
mechanisms in the United Nations; and the need to clarify the roles UN bodies would play in
implementing R2P.

One outcome of the debate was the first resolution referencing R2P adopted by the General Assembly.
The Resolution (A/RES/63/308) showed that the international community had not forgotten about the
concept of the responsibility to protect and it decided "to continue its consideration of the
responsibility to protect".

In subsequent years, the Secretary-General would release a new report, followed by a debate in the
General Assembly.

In 2010, the report was titled Early Warning, Assessment and the Responsibility to Protect. The
informal interactive dialogue was held on 9 August 2010 with 49 member states, two regional
organizations and two civil society organizations speaking at the event. The discussion had a
resoundingly positive tone, with virtually all of those that spoke stressing a need to prevent
atrocities and agreeing that effective early warning is a necessary condition for effective
prevention and early action. A small number of member states expressed objections– namely,
Nicaragua, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan and Venezuela.

In 2011 the report analyzed The Role of Regional and Subregional Arrangements in Implementing the
Responsibility to Protect. At the debate on 12 July 2011, interventions were delivered by 43 member
states, 3 regional organizations and 4 civil society representatives. The biggest challenge to R2P
was considered to be cooperation with, and support between, the UN and regional bodies in times of
crisis. Member states acknowledged the importance of resolving this challenge through the unique
advantages regional organizations possess in preventing and reacting to mass atrocities.

In 2012 the focus was on Responsibility to Protect: Timely and Decisive Response. The debate
followed on 5 September 2012 saw interventions address the third pillar of the Responsibility to
Protect and the diversity of non-coercive and coercive measures available for a collective response
to mass atrocity crimes.

In 2013, the Secretary-General focused on Responsibility to Protect: State responsibility and
prevention. The debate following the report was held on 11 September 2013. Following presentations
by a panel of UN, member state and civil society experts, interventions were delivered by 68 member
states, 1 regional organization and 2 civil society organizations.

How does the responsibility to protect differ from humanitarian intervention?

The Responsibility to Protect differs from humanitarian intervention in four important ways:

First, humanitarian intervention is only military intervention. R2P, on the other hand, is first
and foremost a preventative measure, that stresses state responsibilities. Military intervention
may only be carried out as a last resort, when all other, non-coercive measures have failed and
when it is authorized by the Security Council. R2P is to extend the intervention beyond a purely
military intervention and to encompass a whole continuum of obligations:
 1. The responsibility to prevent: addressing root causes of internal conflict. The ICISS
considered this to be the most important obligation.
 2. The responsibility to react: responding to situations of compelling human need with appropriate
measures that could include sanctions, prosecutions or military intervention.
 3. The responsibility to rebuild: providing full assistance with recovery, reconstruction and
reconciliation.

The second point is related to the first and: R2P is firmly rooted in international law, especially
the law relating to sovereignty, peace and security, human rights and armed conflict. Humanitarian
intervention, on the other hand, regularly violated Article 2.4 of the UN Charter, which outlines
the territorial integrity of every sovereign state. R2P avoids this through the fact that a
military intervention must either be authorized by the state in question or by the UN Security
Council (Chapter VII of the UN Charter gives the Security Council the authority to do this

Third, while humanitarian interventions have in the past been justified through the prevention of
human rights abuses, the R2P focuses only on the four mass atrocity crimes: genocide, crimes
against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing. The first three crimes are clearly defined in
international law and codified in the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal
Court. Ethnic cleansing is not a crime defined under international law, but has been defined by the
UN as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and
terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain
geographic areas”.

Finally, while humanitarian intervention assumes a ‘right to intervene’, the R2P is based on a
‘responsibility to protect’. Humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) both
agree on the fact that sovereignty is not absolute. However, the R2P doctrine shifts away from
state-centered motivations to the interests of victims by focusing not on the right of states to
intervene but on a responsibility to protect populations at risk. In addition, it introduces a new
way of looking at the essence of sovereignty, moving away from issues of 'control' and emphasising
'responsibility' to one's own citizens and the wider international community.

Criticism

R2P and national sovereignty

One of the main concerns surrounding R2P is that it infringes upon national sovereignty. This
concern is rebutted by the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in the report Implementing the
Responsibility to Protect. According to the first pillar of R2P, the state has the responsibility
to protect its populations from mass atrocities and ethnic cleansing, and according to the second
pillar the international community has the responsibility to help states fulfill their
responsibility. Advocates of R2P claim that the only occasions where the international community
will intervene in a state without its consent is when the state is either allowing mass atrocities
to occur, or is committing them, in which case the state is no longer upholding its
responsibilities as a sovereign. In this sense, R2P can be understood as reinforcing sovereignty.
In 2004, the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, set up by Secretary-General Kofi
Annan, endorsed the emerging norm of a responsibility to protect stating that there is a collective
international responsibility,"exercisable by the Security Council authorizing military intervention
as a last resort, in the event of genocide and other large-scale killing, ethnic cleansing, and
serious violations of humanitarian law which sovereign governments have proved powerless or
unwilling to prevent."

Syria, 2011: Russian and Chinese repudiation of abuse of R2P

Several attempts were made by the U.S. government in the course of 2011 to 2013 to pass Security
Council resolutions invoking R2P to justify military intervention in the Syrian civil war. These
were vetoed by Russia and China. The Russian and Chinese governments both issued statements to the
effect that in their opinion R2P had been abused by the U.S. as a pretext for 'regime change', more
particularly in the case of Libya, and that as far as they were concerned they would be extremely
suspicious of any future Security Council resolutions invoking R2P, based on past experience:

The situation in Syria cannot be considered in the council apart from the Libyan experience. The
international community is alarmed that the NATO interpretation of the Libya resolution is a model
for future actions of NATO in implementing responsibility to protect ... (and) could happen in
Syria... We are alarmed that compliance with Security Council resolutions in Libya had been
considered a model for future actions by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It was
important to see how that model had been implemented. The demand for a ceasefire had turned into a
civil war, the humanitarian, social and military consequences of which had spilled beyond Libya.
The arms embargo had turned into a naval blockade on west Libya. Such models should be excluded
from global practice. (Vitaly Churkin, Russian UN Ambassador)

"I hope that the Government would follow through on reform and a process of dialogue. The Council
should encourage those objectives while respecting Syria’s sovereignty’s and territorial integrity.
Any action it took should contribute to peace and stability and comply with the United Nations
Charter principles of non-interference in internal affairs. His country’s position on those
principles had remained consistent and firm." (Li Baodong, Chinese UN Ambassador)

Use of military intervention

The question of military intervention under the third pillar of R2P remains controversial. Several
states have argued that R2P should not allow the international community to intervene militarily on
states, because to do so is an infringement upon sovereignty. Others argue that this a necessary
facet of R2P, and is necessary as a last resort to stop mass atrocities. A related argument
surrounds the question as to whether more specific criteria should be developed to determine when
the Security Council should authorize military intervention.