The Responsibility to Protect in International Law: An Emerging Paradigm Shift

This book will consider a rapidly emerging guiding general principle in international relations and, arguably, in international law: the Responsibility to Protect. This principle is a solution proposed to a key preoccupation in both international relations and international law scholarship: how the international community is to respond to mass atrocities within sovereign States. There are three facets to this responsibility; the responsibility to prevent; the responsibility to react, and the responsibility to rebuild.

This doctrine will be analysed in light of the parallel development of customary and treaty international legal obligations imposing responsibilities on sovereign states to the international community in key international law fields such as international human rights law, international criminal law and international environmental law. These new developments demand academic study and this book fills this lacuna by rigorously considering all of these developments as part of a trend towards assumption of international responsibility. This must include the responsibility on the part of all states to respond to threats of genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansings and large-scale war crimes. The discussion surrounding aggravated state responsibility is also explored, with the author concluding that this emerging norm within international law is closely related to the responsibility to protect in its imposition of an international responsibility to act in response to an international wrong.

This book will be of great interest to scholars on international law, the law of armed conflict, security studies and IR in general.

Acknowledgements Table of Cases Table of Treaties Introduction Part 1: The Theoretical Roots of the Responsiblity to Protect 1. From Humanitarian Intervention to the Responsibility to Protect 2. International Society Part 2: The Evolution of the Responsibility to Protect within areas of International Law 3. State Responsibility: Obligations on State in International Law 4. International Human Rights Law: Rights and Responsibilities 5. International Criminal Law: Responsibilities within the International Criminal Justice System 6. International Environmental Law: The Responsibility to Save the Planet Part 3: The Responsibity to Protect in Practice 7. The Responsibility to Prevent 8. The Responsibility to React 9. The Responsibility to Rebuild 10. Responsibilites Iqnored? Syria and Iraq Conclusion Bibliography