The debate regarding the relationship between state sovereignty and the protection of the hu-man rights was at its peak during the 1990’s. Never again the world wanted to witness the atrocities committed in Rwanda, but at the same time some states argued in favor of a strict interpretation of the principle of state sovereignty and non-intervention. In 2001, ICISS was created – a commission with the aim to find consensus in the question of how the world should respond to mass atrocities committed by a state against their own people. Their work resulted in a report which presented a new view to the state sovereignty: “the responsibility to protect” (R2P). The purpose of this essay is to study the development and appliance of the concept since 2001. According to ICISS, every state has a responsibility to protect its citizens against mass atrocities. If the state is unwilling, or incapable to live up to this responsibility, the international community has the secondary responsibility to protect the people in that state. At the time of ICISS:s report, R2P had a limited legal value and could only be consid-ered as a soft law-principle consisting of arguments de lege ferenda. During the World Sum-mit in 2005, the principle evolved into an international normative concept consisting of the state’s opinio iuris, as R2P was implemented in two paragraphs in the Outcome Document. The definition of the concept now became narrower than the original principle, since R2P only applied to genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and war crimes. The ap-pliance of R2P has been fairly inconsequent in practice. Although usus has not been reached in the area, R2P is now an established concept, and the debate has led from if the international community should act, to how it should act. In the future, regional organizations will probably play an extended role in the work for international peace. Interventions without the Security Council’s mandate is not a desirable outcome, but nevertheless a possibility if the Council doesn’t become more effective when facing mass atrocities and humanitarian disasters.

This thesis considers the issue of the Responsibility to Rebuild in International Law. It posits that the R2R must be re-elevated to significance as a conceptual, normative, and functional element of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), with its institutional homes in the United Nation’s framework and the Secretary-General’s function adequately articulated. In most instances, the 2009 three-pillar R2P framework functions effectively, but it has the flaw of burying and overlooking the critical value of the initial ICISS third pillar, the responsibility to rebuild and reconstruct war-ravaged communities’ threshold of viability and self-sufficiency. This thesis draws some crucial insight from the significant international interventions of the twenty-first century and recalling the scope in which R2P was first conceived to illustrate the unique characteristics of its contribution to global politics or international policy. This thesis addresses the question of who should rebuild after a war. The ‘Belligerents Rebuild Thesis,’ which suggests that those who have been engaged in the battle - including the victor, just belligerent, unjust aggressor, or humanitarian intervener - should be charged with the responsibility of rebuilding, is held by many leading proponents of the importance of jus post-Bellum for Just War Theory. On the other hand, this thesis argues that there is a mutual, international responsibility to rebuild that should be delegated solely based on the agent's capacity to rebuild rather than the belligerents. / Graduate / 2022-08-09

The aim of this work is to analyze the relationship between R2P and violent regime change. The work gives an overview of the establishment of R2P on the international scene, and then deals with its problem of selectivity in its application in practice. Despite the formal adoption of R2P in 2005 by all UN member states, R2P has been since then applied to similar cases of humanitarian crises in different ways. The problem of selectivity of R2P is fuelling the criticism of its legitimacy, because it is according to many a mean for achieving regime change. The most important reason for R2P's criticism is the connection between R2P and violent regime change, and that is the central theme of this work. Based on an analysis of the documents which form R2P, the work concludes that military intervention under R2P must not be deliberately used for regime change. However, there may be situations, when regime change is necessary for the protection of civilians; which means that regime change can be regarded as legitimate only if it is as an indirect result of the intervention. Therefore regime change is an integral part of R2P. The work aims to explore this ambivalent relationship and find out, where lies the boundary between legitimate overthrowing of a régime for the protection of civilians, and regime...