This book examines the hard legal core, if any, of the “Responsibility to Protect (R2P)” concept with regard to the commitment to take collective action through the UN Security Council. It addresses the question of whether public international law establishes a duty on the part of the individual Security Council members to collectively take the necessary action to prevent atrocities (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing). To this end, it offers an interpretation of provisions in multilateral conventions, such as the undertaking to prevent genocide in Article 1 of the Genocide Convention and the undertaking to ensure respect for the Geneva Conventions in common Article 1 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, analyses the UN Charter framework for Security Council action, and explores whether the recognition of the international responsibility to protect has prompted the emergence of a new norm for general international law.

This festschrift, dedicated to Judge Bruno Simma, traces the development of international law from regulating bilateral state-to-state relationships towards strengthening the entire international community by protecting human security, the global environment, and human rights. It provides both theoretical and practical insights into these sometimes conflicting goals, their basis in international law, and the role played by international institutions charged with upholding these values and interests. The work thus examines the mechanism by which international law contributes to the realization not only of individual State interests, but the interests of the international community as a whole. From this vantage point, it looks at the various functions that international law fulfills in the international community, from law-making and institution-building towards adjudication and the securing of human rights. Taken together, the contributions to this book paints a detailed, but nevertheless comprehensive picture of the realization of community interest in contemporary international law. As professor and judge, Bruno Simma has contributed to all of these tasks: providing ground-breaking theoretical work, serving in the International Law Commission and in the Committee for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and finally, as a judge at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The three introductory chapters express this unity of life and work.

In Children and the Responsibility to Protect, Bina D’Costa and Luke Glanville bring together more than a dozen academics and practitioners from around the world to examine the intersections of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle and the theory and practice of child protection. Contributors consider themes including how the agency and vulnerability of children is represented and how their voices are heard in discussions of R2P and child protection, and the merits of drawing together the R2P and Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC) agendas, as well as case studies of children’s lives in conflict zones, child soldiers, and children born of conflict-related sexual violence. This collection of essays was first published in the journal Global Responsibility to Protect (vol.10/1-2, 2018) as a special issue. Contributors are: J. Marshall Beier, Letícia Carvalho, Bina D’Costa, Myriam Denov, Luke Glanville, Michelle Godwin, Erin Goheen Glanville, Cecilia Jacob, Dustin Johnson, Atim Angela Lakor, Katrina Lee-Koo, Ryoko Nakano, Jochen Prantl, Jeremy Shusterman, Hannah Sparwasser Soroka, Timea Spitka, Jana Tabak, Shelly Whitman.

This book presents the views of various international law and human rights experts on the contested meaning, scope of application, value and viability of R2P; the principle of the Responsibility to Protect . R2P refers to the notion that the international community has a legal responsibility to protect civilians against the potential or ongoing occurrence of the mass atrocity crimes of genocide, large scale war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. R2P allows for intervention where the individual State is unable or unwilling to so protect its people or is in fact a perpetrator. The book addresses also the controversial issue of whether intervention by States implementing R2P with or without the endorsement of the United Nations Security Council constitutes a State act of aggression or instead is legally justified and not an infringement on the offending State’s sovereign jurisdiction. The adverse impact on global peace and security of the failure to protect civilians from mass atrocity crimes has put in stark relief the need to address anew the principle of ‘responsibility to protect’ and the feasibility and wisdom of its application and this book is a significant contribution to that effort. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Human Rights.

This comprehensive Research Handbook considers the place of human security, both in practice and as a concept within international law, examining the preconditions for and consequences of applying human security to international legal thinking and practice. It also proposes a future international law in which human security is central to the law’s purpose. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is intended to provide an effective framework for responding to crimes of genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It is a response to the many conscious-shocking cases where atrocities - on the worst scale - have occurred even during the post 1945 period when the United Nations was built to save us all from the scourge of genocide. The R2P concept accords to sovereign states and international institutions a responsibility to assist peoples who are at risk - or experiencing - the worst atrocities. R2P maintains that collective action should be taken by members of the United Nations to prevent or halt such gross violations of basic human rights. This Handbook, containing contributions from leading theorists, and practitioners (including former foreign ministers and special advisors), examines the progress that has been made in the last 10 years; it also looks forward to likely developments in the next decade.

This book places the discussion on reform of the Security Council membership in the context of its primary responsibility at the helm of the UN collective security system.

"Explores the scope and limits of Article 4(h) of the African Union Constitutive Act"--Introd.

This book provides an in-depth introduction to, and analysis of, the issues relating to the implementation of the recent Responsibility to Protect principle in international relations The Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) has come a long way in a short space of time. It was endorsed by the General Assembly of the UN in 2005, and unanimously reaffirmed by the Security Council in 2006 (Resolution 1674) and 2009 (Resolution 1894). UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has identified the challenge of implementing RtoP as one of the cornerstones of his Secretary-Generalship. The principle has also become part of the working language of international engagement with humanitarian crises and has been debated in relation to almost every recent international crisis – including Sudan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Georgia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Darfur and Somalia. Concentrating mainly on implementation challenges including the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities, strengthening the UN’s capacity to respond, and the role of regional organizations, this book introducing readers to contemporary debates on R2P and provides the first book-length analysis of the implementation agenda. The book will be of great interest to students of the responsibility to protect, humanitarian intervention, human rights, foreign policy, security studies and IR and politics in general.

This book examines the parallel development and interaction between the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP), assessing this relationship over time and through case studies of Darfur, Libya, and Syria. The similarities and connections between the doctrine and the Court have been highlighted by UN bodies, the organs of the Court, and scholars, yet their relationship and common impact on international law have been less explored. This book fills this gap in presenting an overview of how the development of RtoP and the ICC affect various branches of international law. The research shows that while the doctrine and the Court experienced significant implementation problems in their first decades of life, they nonetheless have the potential to contribute to the historical evolution of international law in combining their values of promoting international peace and protecting human rights. This interdisciplinary study will be useful for scholars of international law and international relations. It will also be beneficial to persons working for international organisations and for civil society organisations focused on the activity of the ICC and on the development of RtoP.