This essay conducts a Plausibility Probe Case Study focused on how the UN and the wider international community have approached the civil war in Ethiopia. Because the Ethiopian Government has been unable to protect its population, Ethiopia can be considered a typical case for the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). R2P was introduced in response to the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica and builds upon the idea of the international community having a responsibility to assist states to protect their populations. R2P’s normative status remains debated, however, due to criticism directed against R2P’s third pillar which prescribes the international community a responsibility to act when a state is unwilling or unable to protect its population. Therefore, scholars have started to analyse R2P’s status by the use of Finnemore & Sikkink’s Norm Life Cycle Theory, disagreeing about R2P’s normative strength and whether R2P will ever be able to enter the third stage of the Norm Life Cycle (NLC). This essay applies the same theory to the empirical findings from the Ethiopian case with the primary aim to contribute to the debate about R2P’s normative status. Findings show how R2P seems to be positioned at the second stage of the NLC. This does not necessarily mean that R2P should be considered a weak norm as the UN and the international community have indirectly complied with R2P when approaching the Ethiopian conflict. Yet, the fact that none of the relevant actors under study has mentioned R2P explicitly indicates how R2P still remains a controversial norm within international politics.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The intervention in Libya is the best example to date to judge the implementation of the Responsibility to Protect. In 2011, public demonstrations started in Libya seeking political and economic reforms in the country. In return, the Libyan President Maummar Al-Qaddafi threatened mass atrocities in Libya. This allowed the UNSC to sanction the use of force against Qaddafi’s regime in order to protect civilians. First, under resolution 1970 (2011), the UNSC referred the case to the International Criminal Court and applied sanctions. Second, via resolution 1973 (2011), the application of force was approved for the express purpose of “protecting civilians.” This thesis assess whether the military intervention in Libya in 2011 was R2P case. This question is answered by an analysis based upon the UNSC’s Resolutions, Council’s proceedings, and other official documents. / May 2016

This research makes use of a Constructivist approach to norm development, in particular the concept of the norm life cycle, to assess the emergence and development of the responsibility to protect as a norm in international society in relation to the conduct of interventions on humanitarian grounds. This study finds that the responsibility to protect emerged relatively rapidly in international society as a norm relevant to the formulation and implementation of international responses to conflict situations characterised by the commission of atrocity crimes. Indeed, between 2001 and 2010, this study finds that the responsibility to protect norm became codified and entrenched in international organisation, and could therefore have been expected to influence state behaviour, and the discourse surrounding that behaviour, in relation to the conduct of interventions on humanitarian grounds. However, through an assessment of the application of the norm through the United Nations and the African Union to the conflicts in the Darfur region of Sudan from 2003 onwards, the study finds that the norm, while featuring relatively prominently in discourse surrounding Darfur between 2007 and 2008 in the United Nations, appears to have receded thereafter, disappearing from discourse by 2009 altogether, and appears not to have been useful to the attainment of its content goal, namely preventing or halting the commission of atrocity crimes, in the case of Darfur. Indeed, the norm may even have contributed to complicating, as opposed to facilitating, international engagement on Darfur. This study explores the apparent contradiction between the emergence and entrenchment of the responsibility to protect norm in international society at the same time as the norm appears to have increasingly faded from discourse surrounding international responses to the conflicts in Darfur, and assesses the implications of this both for the future development and utility of the norm, as well as for future responses to conflicts characterised by atrocity crimes on the African continent.

Many scholars perceive state sovereignty as absolute, inviolable, indivisible, final, binding and stagnant. That perception emanates from inter alia political, social, cultural and environmental contexts of the modern era. Most literature converge that the doctrine of sovereignty first received official codification at the Peace Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Contemporary international norms, particularly the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, are arguably an environment and culture of current global politics. With human rights and democracy having taken centre-stage in contemporary political discourses, sovereignty is affected and influenced by such developments in international politics. Hence the argument that globalisation, among others, has eroded, weakened and rendered the doctrine of sovereignty obsolete. This study, using Zimbabwe‟s Operation Murambatsvina as a case study, demonstrates that sovereignty is neither unitary in practice, nor sacrosanct; it is dynamic and evolves, thus, in need of constant reconfiguration. To this end, the study uses the qualitative research methodology. / Political Sciences / M.A. (International Politics)

Paragraphs 138 to 140 of the Outcome Document of the 2005 UN World Summit not only elevated the element of prevention to a prominent place within the principle of “responsibility to protect” (R2P), but also restricted the scope of R2P to four specific crimes under international law: genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. This thesis explores the conceptual and practical consequences of linking R2P to the concept of international crimes, with a particular focus on the preventive dimension of R2P, the socalled “responsibility to prevent”. To date, much of what has been written about the “responsibility to prevent” borrows primarily from conflict prevention theory and practice. Such conflict prevention inspired accounts of the “responsibility to prevent” tend to depict the principle as a long-term agenda that seeks to build societies resilient to atrocity crimes; that rests primarily on pillars one (state responsibility) and two (international assistance and capacity-building); that is supportive rather than undermining of state sovereignty; and that can largely adhere to the traditional conflict prevention principles of impartiality, consent, and minimal coercion should more direct prevention efforts become necessary. Drawing on literature from criminology, this thesis develops an international crimes framework for operationalizing the preventive dimension of R2P. The framework, combined with three case studies of international crime prevention (Bosnia 1991-1995; Kenya 2007-08; and Libya 2011), challenges key assumptions of the conflict prevention accounts, arguing that linking R2P to the concept of international crimes turns the “responsibility to prevent” into a principle that is more focused on the short-term, rather than on so-called root causes of atrocity crimes; more focused on individuals, rather than on state structures and capacity; more partial regarding perpetrators and victims; and more coercive, intrusive, and controversial than is commonly acknowledged in academic writing and policy debates on the subject. More broadly, the thesis concludes that taking R2P’s focus on the prevention of international crimes seriously requires re-rethinking the “responsibility to prevent” in important respects.

The aim of the work is to analyze the concepts of humanitarian intervention and responsibility to protect (R2P) with special emphasis on their development in the light of the ongoing Syrian crisis. The text follows the evolution of humanitarian intervention into R2P and introduces theoretical assumptions behind both concepts. It is argued that at the moment, R2P does not bring particularly novel concepts into the international law and can be generally described as a hybrid of legal, political and moral obligations. Consequently, the text includes a case study of the Syrian conflict and an evaluation of the way R2P has been applied during the crisis. Final section of the work is devoted to a suggestion of a new solution for R2P - responsibility while protecting.

Inicialmente, esta dissertação apresenta o marco teórico conceitual em que se situa a sociedade internacional contemporânea, as fontes tradicionais do direito internacional expostas no art. 38 do Estatuto da Corte Internacional de Justiça, as possíveis novas fontes do direito internacional atos unilaterais de Estados, atos de organizações internacionais e Soft Law. É abordado em seguida o paradigma da soberania decorrente da modificação da sociedade internacional. Os fundamentos da Responsabilidade de Proteger (R2P) são levados a uma análise sob as diversas fontes do direito internacional. A R2P não se verifica como fonte autônoma do direito internacional nos princípios gerais de direitos, nas convenções internacionais e nos meios auxiliares da doutrina e da jurisprudência. Todavia, seu enquadramento é feito em duas teorias: branda e dinâmica. Em razão de seu caráter de formação de opinio juris e da prática reiterada, a teoria branda considera a R2P uma manifestação do costume internacional. Enquanto isso, a teoria dinâmica leva em consideração a evolução do direito internacional contemporâneo, que considera a Soft Law uma fonte autônoma, bem como as manifestações da R2P. Conclui-se, então, que a teoria da R2P está sedimentada nas fontes do direito internacional contemporâneo e clássico. / Firstly this thesis presents the conceptual framework in which lies the contemporary international society, the traditional sources of International Law - exposed in art. 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, the possible new sources of International Law - unilateral acts of States, international organizations and acts of Soft Law. Then, it brings forward the paradigm of sovereignty resulting from the modification of the international society. The foundations of the Responsibility to Protect are subject to an analysis emphasizing the variety of International Law sources. The R2P is not embraced as an autonomous source of International Law in the general principles, international conventions, doctrine and jurisprudence. However, its framing is analyzed in this thesis with two theories: \"mild\" and \"dynamic\". Considering the formation of opinio juris and the repeated practice, the mild theory considers R2P as a manifestation of international custom. Meanwhile, the dynamic theory takes into account the evolution of contemporary International Law, which considers Soft Law as an autonomous source, as well as the manifestations of R2P. So the conclusion is that the theory of R2P is based in the sources of contemporary and classic International Law.