Responsibility to Protect

Responsibility to Protect, or R2P as it is popularly referred to, is a principle used to justify military intervention in the case where crimes are perpetrated according to international humanitarian law. R2P is the principle that corresponds to demands that "we have to do something". R2P is yet one more justification for "humanitarian intervention", a justification for intervention pioneered by USIP during the 1980s. At present (2012), R2P is a principle for selective intervention, i.e., not all mass violations of human rights result in calls for R2P. It is also the case that it is primarily neocons or neocon organizations that are primarily involved in calling for interventions using this justification, e.g., Libya, Syria.

Critical Assessment
Aidan Hehir, director of the International Relations Program at Univ. of Westminster, comments:
 * Peter Lavelle: Aidan Hehir, "right to protect" or "right to penetrate" nation states, which is it? We saw Libya and Syria is on the agenda...
 * Hehir: Well, R2P usually refers to the responsibility to protect rather than the "right to protect", but "right to protect" is a better way of understanding this principle. What R2P essentially stands for is a discretionary entitlement.  The Security Council may decide to intervene if it decides that a particular situation constitutes a threat to peace and security, but the problem with R2P is that it is under no obligation to do anything.  And essentially what R2P has done is very, very little.  It has created a slogan which has entered into the political discourse, and many people refer to it in academia and international politics, but it has changed absolutely nothing when it comes to international relations; particularly, to the international community's response to intra-state crisis, and the situation in Syria is very obvious.  It is a classic case of the great power choosing of when/where to intervene, and the humanitarian situation on the ground plays very little in that determination.


 * Edward S. Herman, "R2P As An Instrument of Aggression", Z Magazine, November 2013.

Organizations pro-R2P

 * Human Rights Foundation
 * International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect (ICRtoP) – is a portal of organization working in the human rights/R2P arena

Resources

 * Peter Lavelle, Crosstalk: R2P, RT, 29 February 2012. Synopsis: ­When is it appropriate to invoke the “right to protect” doctrine? Does the Libyan intervention prove or disprove the effectiveness and legitimacy of outside military intervention in the name of protecting civilians under attack from their own government? Should the R2P be applied to Syria today? What about invoking the R2P doctrine the next time Israel attacks the people of Gaza? CrossTalking with Philip Cunliffe, Steven Haines and  Aidan Hehir.