The Responsibility to Protect (R2P)

The Basic Principles of R2P

Responsibility to Protect cover A. State sovereignty implies responsibility, and the primary responsibility for the protection of its people lies within the state itself.

B. Where a population is suffering serious harm, as a result of internal war, insurgency, repression or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert it, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect.

What is R2P? [0]
What does it mean to have Responsibility to Protect? [0]
The six criteria for military intervention [0]
Links and more information [0]

What is "R2P"?Responsibility to Protect doctrine [1] was created by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, an independent international commission established by the government of Canada, to address Annan's concern. This commission revolutionized international perspectives on humanitarian intervention.

R2P argues that rather than states exercising their "right to humanitarian intervention," they are fulfilling their "responsibility to protect." This linguistic shift highlights how intervention has the purpose of protecting of civilians suffering from serious harm. R2P argues that rather than states exercising their "right to humanitarian intervention," they are fulfilling their "responsibility to protect."

R2P has redefined the conception of state sovereignty by arguing that international community has the responsibility to protect civilians in states that are unwilling or unable to do so.

Read more about the background of R2P

The United States has begun to incorporate the Responsibility to Protect doctrine within their resolutions. Paragraphs 138 and 139 of the United Nation's 2005 World Summit Outcome [2] narrowed the Responsibility to Protect doctrine to mean the following:

Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. We accept this responsibility and will act in accordance with it... (¶ 138).

Regarding the current genocide in Darfur, the United Nations passed Resolution 1769 on July 31, 2007, authorizing the deployment of an UN-African Union hybrid force, which said:

While Resolution 1769 maintains the sovereignty of the Government of Sudan, it also endorses Resolution 1674 on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, which reaffirms the provisions of paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document regarding the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

What does it mean to have a Responsibility to Protect?The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty [3]
International Crisis Group - Responsibility to Protect [4]

Responsibility to Protect: Engaging Civil Society [5]

View a PowerPoint presentation on R2P [6]

Core Documents on R2P [7]

More Reading on R2P [8]

R2P Coalition [9]

Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect [10]