The Responsibility to Protect: An Idea Whose Time Has Come … and Gone?

Abstract

How far did the unanimous agreement on the responsibility to protect at the 2005 UN World Summit really mark the international community's acceptance of a new norm supporting collective action — including ultimately military action — when governments through either incapacity or ill-will fail to protect their own people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity? This article describes the rapid initial emergence and acceptance of the concept, but also the subsequent denial and evasion by a number of governments of the commitments they signed up to in 2005. It addresses the five main conceptual misunderstandings and misapprehensions evident in the public debate that need to be overcome if the argument in support of the responsibility to protect is to be won.