Abstract   In 2005 the United Nations (UN) unanimously agreed setting up a framework for the responsibility to protect (R2P) populations facing mass death and large scale atrocities consisting of three pillars. This responsibility was primarily for states to protect their own population (pillar 1). However, the second pillar of R2P mentions the responsibility for outside actors to engage protecting populations if their home government fails to ensure this protection. This study is about the emergence of R2P and why it has failed to protect the population in the ongoing Syrian intra-state war. Applied to the case of the Syrian conflict is Amitav Acharya’s (2013) model of norm circulation which will serve as the analytical framework for this research. Furthermore, the implementation of R2P is hampered when a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) decides to veto a resolution. This study suggests that when the UNSC is unable to act to protect populations at risk of mass death, a regional organization should have the authority to respond with necessary actions, even though that action would violate the sovereignty of the third state (see Williams et. al, 2012). As to date, the emerging norm of R2P still needs further diffusion in order to reach global acceptance. This research search to continue the development of the understanding of R2P and the emergence of global norms.   Keywords: R2P, Syria, emerging norms, the United Nations

This is a study that aims to look at the violence occurring in Sudan and Libya in 2011. It asks the question why there was an intervention in the latter case but not the former. The analysis will use an integrated theoretical framework, looking at national interests, power balance and international norms to explain the behavior and decision-making of states in these particular cases. The fact that so little has been done or said about the conflict in Sudan is troubling, and deserves an explanation, especially considering the very different reaction to similar situations like Libya at the time. This study uses a comparative method to map the differences and similarities between the two cases using both statistical numbers and facts, as well as a content analysis to examine the discourse and media coverage on the two conflicts. The analysis may seem very broad and complex, but the same can be said about world politics in general. It is a very complex thing, and sometimes a complex explanation is required. Very rarely is there just one answer to a question like this, but many different perspectives that are often equally legitimate and important to consider. This is the basis of the method used in this study, to use different perspectives to give a clearer overall image of why states act as they do, and why they make the decisions that they make.

No description available.

For nearly half a decade discussion of the responsibility to protect (R2P) and international criminal justice proceeded along separate lines. However, in recent years an emerging perception that international criminal law may contribute to putting an end to a continuing atrocity crimes has lead to its use as an R2P reactive tool. This paper examines the relationship between R2P and the activity of International Criminal Court (the ICC), and the implications of their recent rapprochement. Firstly, the paper aims to bring a much-needed focus on the implications of their current interaction in ongoing conflict situations. Secondly it examines whether the convergence of R2P and the ICC represents a paradigmatic shift toward humanity’s law and a possible utopian tyranny or reinforces the traditional statist system as the fundamental framework for conflict mediation opening the door to a possible “cynic tyranny”. Thirdly, it considers how ICC and R2P activities should be coordinated.

For nearly half a decade discussion of the responsibility to protect (R2P) and international criminal justice proceeded along separate lines. However, in recent years an emerging perception that international criminal law may contribute to putting an end to a continuing atrocity crimes has lead to its use as an R2P reactive tool. This paper examines the relationship between R2P and the activity of International Criminal Court (the ICC), and the implications of their recent rapprochement. Firstly, the paper aims to bring a much-needed focus on the implications of their current interaction in ongoing conflict situations. Secondly it examines whether the convergence of R2P and the ICC represents a paradigmatic shift toward humanity’s law and a possible utopian tyranny or reinforces the traditional statist system as the fundamental framework for conflict mediation opening the door to a possible “cynic tyranny”. Thirdly, it considers how ICC and R2P activities should be coordinated.

This study explores the extent and depth of moral obligations in international relations, and how our collective understanding of these obligations has changed in the post-Cold War era. The genocides in Rwanda (1994) and Srebrenica (1995) raised questions about the moral legitimacy of states ravaged by human rights violations, and about the responsibility of outside states to protect innocent civilians from being massacred across political and cultural boundaries. In this context, the concept of humanitarian intervention as an expression of international moral responsibility emerged as one of the most controversial foreign policy issues of our time. The formal and unanimous adoption of the doctrine known as the Responsibility to Protect (ICISS, 2001) by the United Nations General Assembly (2005), and the subsequent ratification by the U.N. Security Council, reiterated our collective responsibility when faced with situations of grave human rights violations. Nevertheless, the international community repeatedly fails to respond adequately to atrocities. By comparing the nature of, and moral justifications for, the U.S. response to the atrocities in Rwanda (1994), Darfur (2003-2007), and Libya (2011), this study reveals that, despite inconsistencies in policy, the solidarist values reflected in Responsibility to Protect are evolving along Finnemore and Sikkink’s (1998) “norm life cycle.” Yet, it also cautions against the reliance on the “humanitarian impulses” of world leaders in internalizing this expanded notion of moral responsibility in international relations. Beyond the transitory nature of political will, this dependence fails to address the underlying assumptions generating inconsistencies in international moral decision-making. This study suggests that in order to ameliorate the problem of inconsistent responses to situations of mass atrocities, deeper issues related to realist assumptions upon which the international system is based may be involved, demanding attention and reassessment.

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 study examines the extent to which Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principles are embedded in the African Union’s interventionist framework. The AU has been heralded as a trailblazer of R2P, enshrining its attendant principles in the Union’s 2000 Constitutive Act, five years before the emerging norm’s adoption by world leaders at the 2005 World Summit. However, in the case of the recent humanitarian crisis in Libya, and the UN Security Council’s subsequent intervention during 2011, the AU failed to invoke R2P, jettisoning Article 4(h) of its own Constitutive Act and insisting on a negotiated solution to the crisis. This position placed the Union on a collision course with several other regional organisations, notably the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation which assumed a leading role in the implementation of the UNSC mandate to intervene. The AU’s actions also placed into question the rhetoric-reality nexus of its responsibility to protect. At issue is thus the matter of norm localisation, and whether lack thereof and/or other challenges are inhibiting consolidation of R2P within the AU’s security culture. The study therefore traces the institutionalisation of the guiding tenets of R2P within the evolving AU Peace and Security Architecture, and investigates the operationalisation thereof (arguably the most contentious dimension to the global discourse on R2P) in the case of the 2011 UNSC intervention in Libya. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / Political Sciences / Unrestricted

The purpose of this thesis is to examine interventions under the doctrine of R2P without appropriate legal authority becomes coercive actions of Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention. And that a unilateral humanitarian intervention would amount to the crime of aggression.   The R2P doctrine states that sovereignty is derived from the responsibility for a population. The responsibility to protect is primarily on the state. In the event of a failure to protect a human population the responsibility is transferred to the international community of states.According to the doctrine of Humanitarian Interventions it exists a third exception to the use of force, which allows states to legally intervene in the event of a humanitarian catastrophe.  This thesis will first examine the link between R2P and Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention. Secondly, the legal status of Unilateral Humanitarian interventions will be examined, and how Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention can fulfil the elements of the crime of aggression. The last part examines if Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention can constitute ‘defensive force of others’ as grounds to exclude criminal responsibility, in the event of an ICC criminal trial for the crime of aggression.The thesis concludes that a person subject to a criminal prosecution for the crime of aggression in the event of Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention, could successfully argue ‘defensive force of others’ as grounds to exclude criminal responsibility.

This thesis aims to critically assess the threemain approaches for the legal and political future of humanitarianintervention. It does so through the use of a normative and, to a lesser extent, a dogmatic methodology. The thesis thoroughly examines whether the relevant provisions of the UN Charter provide a satisfactory legal framework. Acknowledging the deficiencies of existing international law, the thesis brings underscrutiny the position that the law should be disregarded. Finding such a worldorder to be unacceptable, the thesis further sets off to explore potential legal and political reforms. The conclusion of the analysis is that a reform must consist of two elements in order to be both effective and legitimate. First, the codification of criteria under which humanitarian intervention is recognised as a legal right. Second, an institutional reform that mitigates the opportunities for states to pursue their political self-interests.