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Topic 3

“Critically assess the impact of the Responsibility to Protect on the role of the UN Security

Council in respect of mass human rights violations. In formulating your response please

refer to relevant Security Council practice and UN documentation, along with appropriate

academic commentary”.

Word count: 4984

One of the reasons why the United Nations was formed after the Second World War was

to protect liberties, freedoms and rights of individuals that were compromised during the war. In

the 2005 United Nations World Summit, all member states unanimously adopted the doctrine of

Responsibility to Protect, in order to prevent four aspects of human rights violations by war crimes,

crimes against humanity, genocide and ethnic cleansing. The underlying concept or the core of

this doctrine is that in order for nations to exercise their sovereignty, it has to protect its civilians

from human rights violations and mass atrocity crimes. The fundamental premise that forms its

bases is civilian-protection, with respect to international law and its principles regarding peace,

human rights and security in not only areas of armed conflicts but also otherwise in emergency

situations. In order to protect civilians from being subject to such violations, the United Nations

Security Council has the sole authority to apply or invoke it as part of a last resort, when all other

measures such as sanctions, mediation, diplomatic pressures etc. fail. There is a lot of legal debate

surrounding the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, in light of the international law surrounding the

principles of state sovereignty.

The purpose of this essay is to critically assess the bearing of the Responsibility to Protect

on the role of the UN Security Council in respect of mass human rights violations pertaining to

different cases, and concluding as to how effective these actions have been in not only preventing

but also mitigating the future impacts of these atrocities. It will be divided into five parts. This

essay will begin by tracing the historical and contemporary application as well as the procedure

for implementation of the Responsibility to Protect and how it serves as a goal-oriented tool for

objectives of the United Nations Security Council. The second part will analyze structural

problems that render this type of humanitarian intervention tricky in accordance to the

Responsibility to Protect and how obstacles towards it full implementation may lead to the doctrine
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being classified as ‘ineffective’. The third part of this essay will feature successful resolutions and

how the Responsibility to Protect being applied by the United Nations Security Council led to

protection of civilians and put an end to mass human atrocities being carried out. In the fourth part

of this essay, I will analyze contrary literature by looking at individual case studies including Syria,

etc. to argue that the role of United Nations Security Council to employ Responsibility to Protect

in preventing mass human rights violations has been hindered due to geo-political factors. This

essay will then conclude with tracing patterns that we have witnessed with respect to the

application of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine and the future that might hold if legal obstacles

are not given thought to.

Before delving into the arguments, it is important to put everything in context. The 2009

United Nations report contained the three pillars needed for implementation of the Responsibility

to Protect1. The first pillar revolves around the responsibility of individual states, to provide

protection to their civilians from crimes against humanity including war crimes, genocide,

incitement and ethnic cleansing. The basic application of this pillar required countries to establish

monitoring mechanisms within their borders to promote human protection. The second pillar went

beyond the role of a nation state, encompassing and highlighting the role that the international

community can play in the protection of populations. This included different avenues of

international assistance- military, financial and technical- to assist countries in extending

protecting against mass atrocities and meet the requirements. A distinction was also drawn

between humanitarian intervention and military intervention with regards to imposition and

invitation. Furthermore, this pillar also includes the aspect of prevention of crises via diplomatic

efforts by other countries, such as those taken in Kenya in 2008 where international efforts

1
Report of the Secretary-General, ‘Implementing the Responsibility to Protect’, UN doc., A/63/677, 12 Jan. 2009
 Page 4

prevented the threat of further bloodshed in the aftermath of disputed elections. Until this point,

the Responsibility to Protect appears to be a soft-doctrine, where no coercive methods are

employed and atrocities are prevented by either state action or employment of international

diplomacy. This is where the third pillar of the Responsibility to Protect comes in, where a range

of measures which a coercive in nature, from direct military action to operations and sanctions are

applied. Even though there is a qualification for the application of this pillar, that it is to be used

as a last resort when every other non-military measure fails, the power of this pillar has been

established as that of looming over the head of the other two. This instrument of critical

significance is a core policy within this doctrine that is still poorly and ineffectively understood,

and its application used to fulfill political and strategic interests by international actors.

Part I: A historical and contemporary perspective – the application of the Responsibility to

protect, the achievement of United Nations Security Council goals and International

Humanitarian law

The aims of international law are based round the principles of peace, cooperation between

states and security within an otherwise anarchic environment. The existence and prolonging of

international conflicts, however, continue to pose threats and challenges to these primordial aims.

The doctrine of Responsibility to Protect has emerged as one that has gained recognition within

the global sphere governed by international law, based on a key foundation of justified intervention

to prevent human rights abuses. Despite this acceptance, under the norms of international laws

pertaining to intervention, such a doctrine has received mixed responses based on the way it is

applied in different contexts around the world. Questions such as whether pace and stability is

being achieved at the expense of violation of international laws and whether intervention in such
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emergency situations maintain continued relevance in the field of international law will be

addressed in this section.

The main focus of international law is on collective human rights and the protection of

these rights under all circumstances to ensure that peace and stability is maintained. Under

international law any force - be it state or non-state – if threatens the principles of international

law, has to be dealt with and becomes the concern of the international community under the

Responsibility to Protect which will be applied by the United Nations Security Council. Even

though internal law grants the state sovereignty, i.e. a state can decide the fate of their citizens,

there are limits placed to this right that is granted. These limits are applied when states fail to offer

protection and security to their civilians and in such cases, the state no longer remains a sovereign

actor under international law. Here, the international law dictates that the global community should

come together and take an action. In such cases, the international law permits intervention in

instances of persecution, breaches of fundamental rights and aggravated internal conflicts. There

is hence a need to balance the puzzle where implications surrounding state soverignity are not

breached when human rights violations are being reversed. This is why the first two pillars of the

Responsibility to Protect doctrine mention non-intervention methods where states are facilitated

or pressured to put an end to such violations of international law. While on one hand international

law supports the sovereignty of the state, and enforced a respect of this sovereignty, it holds human

rights above such sovereignty. Hence in cases like Rwanda, Kenya, Libya or Syria the sovereignty

of the state did not prevent the United Nations Security Council from using the Responsibility to

protect for restoration of rights and liberties in these states. Only states that protect human needs

within their territories of jurisdiction are legible to uphold this provision. The Responsibility to

Protect also highlights a gradual transformation of traditional laws governing international arena
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where it is being forced to take into account moral questions regardless of state boundaries to

further protect and prevent crimes and atrocities that plagues Rwanda, Kosovo, Nigeria etc. In

Nigeria, for example, the internal law provides strong arguments nd justifications for intervention

under the Responsibility to Protect to protect the civilians and fight against terrorism, since the

government has failed to be responsible in protecting its civilians who are subject to atrocities and

crimes committed by Boko Haram.

The legal basis of the Responsibility to Protect, which in itself is not a legally binding

doctrine, has its roots in international law grounded under humanitarian concerns. The Genocide

Convention, which forms a part of international law, enumerates the responsibilities of a state to

prevent and punish crimes of genocide within its territory. The Geneva Conventions an Additional

Protocols highlight how states have an obligation to respect human rights and protect them,

pertaining to responsibilities of war crimes under Responsibility to Protect, an important pillar of

international humanitarian law. The Rome Statute of the United Nations International Criminal

Court (ICC) outlines crimes against humanity and state action in such situations. The

Responsibility to Protect and International Humanitarian Law have a lot of similarities, if states

ensure the protection of clauses under this International Law guidelines, there would be no need

to commission an action by the United Nations Security Council under the Responsibility to

Protect. For example, if state institutions like the government and military can respect the rules of

International Law and guarantee subsequent protection to its civilians to prevent their sovereignty

from being breached. Even at certain times of emergency, when some rights are suspended, states

have a duty to take up the Responsibility to Protect, and not allow human rights violations to take

place. The development of the Responsibility to Protect when paired with International

Humanitarian Law provides better focus and clarity when states are being responsible for
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population protection. Such developments are essential in not only reinforcing international but

also domestic legal frameworks of prevention of human rights violations.

However, even when the international law allows for the United Nations Security Council

to authorize intervention. There are controversies that plague this international intervention

framework. Firstly, it is the case that many countries like the United States often do not authorize

intervention for prevention of human rights violations, but do so to protect their interests and

ideology. This might be done by the original intervention mandate actually having little applicative

effectiveness towards the actual issues. Developing countries suffer this price, for example, various

actors within the international community are skeptical of the real interventions of the United

States to intervene in Nigeria, vast amounts of scholarship dictate that it is to protect the vast

reserves of gas and oil resources that serve economic interests of the superpower, rather than

preventing the Boko Haram crisis from prolonging and push for an expedient and speedy

resolution.

Part II: Legal and structural problems of using Responsibility to Protect for Humanitarian

intervention

“In the long history of debates pertaining to humanitarian intervention on the basis of

Responsibility to Protect, there has been a consistent failure to directly address the question of

methods employed in such interventions”2. The scholarship surrounding this phenomenon has

been based around legal and ethical questions such as permissible boundaries to provoke action to

2
Roland Paris, 'The ‘Responsibility to Protect’ And The Structural Problems Of Preventive Humanitarian
Intervention' (2014) 21 International Peacekeeping accessed 26 April 2018.
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gain humanitarian ends by the use of armed forces. Even within the legal questions that have been

raised, it has ignored the pitfalls and challenges surrounding the application of international law.

These legal problems that arise leading to ineffective implementation of this doctrine is

caused by five factors that even international law cannot protect. Firstly, it is the problem of mixed

motives. The rationale behind the legitimacy of the application of this doctrine is that it is strictly

used for the purposes of altruism, i.e. to prevent human rights violations from taking place and

protecting the liberties of populations around the world. If the altruistic cause is not present, it is

simply intervention or war for other political and strategic purposes. The international law

governing countries fall short of recognizing this distinction, and the United Nations Security

Council mostly uses this doctrine to serve geo-political purposes of states whose veto powers

matter. There is no set definitive guidelines or standards for such a preventative intervention. To

prevent a self-interested war, it is imminent that such elicit motives are perceived and catered to

by international legal frameworks.

Secondly, even if an action is taken on the basis of Responsibility to Protect, it is very

difficult to prove that the deployment of such an intervention has succeeded, beyond only pursuing

humanitarian objectives. Many times the Responsibility to Protect doctrine is used as a

preventative tool to stop atrocities before they even occur, hence the counter-factual arguments of

what would have happened in the absence of such an intervention. Here is where international law

governing sovereignty and decision-making rights of states are undermined, using causation and

even-if arguments to justify the action. When counter factual cannot be proven, it is very difficult

to judge motives behind the undertaken approach. Thirdly, while it is true that humanitarian

intervention on the basis of Responsibility to Protect brings a lot of benefits, its costs are also

visible and forms the essence of the problems relating to conspicuous harms. Interventions, no
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matter how carefully they are conducted and planned, always do result in collateral damage often

with respect to infrastructure and human lives. However, such collateral damage is often

legitimized as the ‘necessary step to stop a bigger evil’, resulting in the violation of legal and

humanitarian norms. In cases where the costs of actions based on Responsibility to Protect might

be higher, they are often overlooked on what is claimed to be accomplished, often lacking

substantial evidence. There are structural tendencies for such operations to be judged with respect

to the harms they avert, rather than how much damage they inflict on lives, buildings, institutional

systems, displacements, networks, supply chains etc.

Fourthly, the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, even when it lays out the conditions for

when the international community has to act, misses out the path of withdrawal. After the forces

have been successful in securing and mitigating the threats faced, they are no aware of how to

withdraw or disengage without recreating the environment that caused the intervention in the first

place. Power vacuums in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria have resulted in these societies

falling back into humanitarian crises since effective withdrawal after rebuilding state institutions

are not outlined in the Responsibility to protect, and hence not followed by the United Nations

Security Council while drawing up Resolutions or plans. Non state actors may have been armed

in the process who then go on and use coercive means to establish their power after the withdrawal

of armed forces. Contrary to the original purposes of the Responsibility to Protect, the failure to

establish safe areas for an under threat population. What should then be done in a situation where

such factors are likely to rise to the surface? One set of scholars, for whom the protection of civilian

lives hold utmost importance, have argued that missions prolonging to indefinite periods of time

should be introduced where a semi-permanent presence is always established wither by the United

Nations Peacekeeping Forces or peace missions delegated via various United Nations country
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specific missions. For this, however, when the initial mandate for the operation is being drawn up,

peace enforcement and open ended policing will have to be introduced in the clauses of the

Resolutions, significantly expanding the term of the doctrine’s application. An additional benefit

this might entail is that the interveners will remain committed to the operations from the start,

effectively employ resources and develop things in the best possible way since their presence will

not be short lived within the conflict zone.

However, there are also problems with such an approach. There might be local resistance

and unacceptance towards the intervening forces. Such occupations might also serve as a

disincentive towards actors that might want to come to the forefront but not do so because they

would not want to engage in such a life-long commitment which will result in protests within their

local countries. To prevent these issues, the approach of eliminating the threat altogether may be

undertaken. In a lot of cases, such a strategy might be pointing towards a regime change where the

threat is the government itself as a coercive intervention will most likely happen against its wishes.

Here the broadening of initial objectives might raise a number of questions, ranging from the

ulterior motives of those who participate in this mission of atrocity prevention. In countries where

non state actors are the major cause of human rights violations, intervention under the

Responsibility to Protect can also serve a third purpose, to settle crisis or negotiate protection for

groups that otherwise have grievances which translate towards violence. Such an approach will be

based on two assumptions. One, that such groups will trust recommendations under the

Responsibility to Protect doctrine to serve their interests. Two, the typical involvement of

international forces that have otherwise occupied their country coercively need to establish their

presence as trusted guarantors of any agreements that are to be drawn up. Even though the initial
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mandate is expanded here, it is more likely that the society will not fall back into situations it

needed saving from in the first place.

The last dimension of discrepancies in the application of the Responsibility to Protect by

the United Nations Security Council to prevent mass human rights atrocities is the international

response towards this emergency. There are many cases where civilians were gravely threatened

but either the outside actors chose not to intervene, or they could not intervene given the problems.

In Syria, for example, this was due to a number of factors. The United Nations Security Council

was divided on the degree of urgency that the threat posed, conflicting outlooks on the nature of

emergency or the role the international community could play with regards to reaching agreements

or peace processes using international action. Since the events on the ground are rapidly unfolding,

with new avenues to atrocities within conflicts emerging, it is very easy to narrowly miss the

temporal window in which the responsibility to Protect might have been successful in instigating

a positive outcome. Many a times, the prospective superpowers within the United Nations Security

Council have refused to invoke action based on this doctrine as the operation might have the

possibility of conflicting with their interest. Russia and China have vetoed against various

Resolutions towards interventions in conflict zones because they feared that the United States will

benefit out of it with its ideological and geo-political motives being fulfilled. The measure of

preventative humanitarian intervention should not been the calculation of interest fulfillment on

part of the actors that are intervening, but should be considerate of the emergency in question. The

interest of such states can be protected by not only putting an end to the atrocities being committed,

but also ensuring that the countries not only undertake all tasks required of them, but also promote

aspects of accountability and checks and balances on institutions of the state being intervened.
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Each of the five structural problems highlighted above gives rise to questions about

effective implementation of the Responsibility to Protect, in legal and structural sense, to prevent

human rights violations being carried out in countries. These problems not only make the

application of this doctrine to be termed as hypocritical and fickle, but also gives rise to questions

about what is at the core of this doctrine, strategic preventative humanitarian intervention in the

interests of the populations.

Part III: Application of Responsibility to Protect and successful prevention of mass human

atrocities

The first major application of the third pillar of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, that

of coercive military intervention, was carried out in Libya in 2011 in the awakening of the Arab

Spring. To date, Libya is the sole country where the United Nations Security council authorized a

“military force for human protection purposes against a functioning de jure government”3.

Responsibility to Protect has been applied in previous cases, but this is the first in a kind of military

intervention cloaked as a humanitarian one. Once anti-government protests began, the regime

started committing mass human rights violations by killing hundreds of thousands of people using

mercenaries as well as live ammunition from war planes and helicopters in order to regain control.

Since the beginning of the conflict it was viewed in light of responsibility to Protect by the United

Nations. This outlook caused the United Nations to warn the Libyan state to put an end to all

atrocities and human rights violations, and when it failed to do so, led the United Nations Security

Council adopting Resolution 1970, imposing a no-fly zone, an arms embargo on the state and

reinforced the need to protect its civilians. As soon as the Gadhafi’s government aired no-mercy

3
Paul D. Williams, “Humanitarian Military Intervention after the Responsibility to Protect” (2013) Genocide
Matters: Ongoing Issues and Emerging Perspectives, London: Routledge, pp.151
 Page 13

messages, the United Nations adopted another Resolution, 1973, of intervening under the

Responsibility to Protect the Libyan civilians at the hand of its state.

However, the intervention that was carried out under the banner of responsibility to protect

soon started falling out as strategic interests clashed with civilian protection, a major hurdle that

has not been able to be crossed over. China and Russia, who casted a vote in abstinence on the

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 not only back tracked and started opposing the

intervention but also made South Africa, an important regional player, go back on its support.

Where the NATO forces were trying to maintain a balance between the state forces, civilians and

rebels to prevent further human rights violations, they were being accused of expanding the

mandate of the mission in their favor. The international community, even though it stood up for

human rights protection, kept expressing misgivings about the apparent and hidden aims of the

mission which became apparent starting with withdrawal of Italian forces. NATO forces took

advantage and turned the mission into one where ever state asset is targeted and rebels are armed

to take charge. France and Qatar also joined in providing weapons to rebels, and Qatar went as far

as surpassing the legality of the Responsibility to Protect by providing troops. This mission, even

though turned away from having a civilian protection mandate to that of regime change, was

successful in preventing continuation of mass scale human rights violations by capturing and

killing Gadhafi. However, it does not take away from the exposure of violation of international

laws that took place.

One of the world’s biggest academic on the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, Gareth

Evans, talks about the reflections and proposals that are important for critical assessment of this

doctrine in light of how it is employed by the United Nations Security Council for protection of

mass human rights atrocities. In situations where mass atrocities are unfolding at rapid rates, a
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continued resonance approach needs to be put forwards in order to restore the faith of the

international community in the results that this doctrine is capable of providing. For such

evaluations, it is important that the future application of this doctrine learns from the past mistakes

and controversies that it has faced, so that widespread support and results can be achieved in

harmony. Successful prevention of mass atrocities by the United Nations Security Council can be

achieved by rebuilding consensus on the first two pillars of the doctrine, and using the third one

pertaining to preventive humanitarian intervention only as a last resort. The author calls out for

progress and adjustment in five areas to ensure that missions under the banner of Responsibility to

Protect are civilian oriented, (a) greater resources and research in non-aggression and non-

intervention based methods of preventing human rights violations such as sanctions, embargoes

and other diplomatic initiatives (b) clarified and detailed guideline of the cases and situations in

which authoritative coercive military force against the wish of the state in question can be applied

(c) analyzing factors and conditions which lie at the heart of the conflict and devise long-term

structural and legal strategies as preventative measures (d) increasing the capacity of regional

organizations and local government avenues for emergency responses, as well as devotion of

relevant international organizations towards the conflict (e) refrain from mixing geo-political and

strategic interests pertaining to intervention with the original aims of missions such as that of

civilian protection, civil society reconstruction and promotion of stability.

Part IV: Action or inaction - Failures of the United Nations Security Council to invoke

Responsibility to Protect to prevent mass human rights violations

On the contrary, United Nations Security Council’s protection of mass human rights

violations under the Responsibility to Protect doctrine depends on the geopolitical involvement

and strategic position of the nation in question. An important aspect of this phenomenon is that for
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the Responsibility to Protect doctrine to effectively work without criticism, there has to be a

common ground that has to be agreed upon by world leaders with regards to intervention

legitimized via protection of civilians. There has to be a certain strict degree of evaluation or

monitoring process to conclude whether an intervention is going to take place or not.

If the biggest claim of this doctrine has been the protection of basic human rights,

mitigating death tolls, controlling collateral damage and countering any factors threatening this

order, then the international community should have taken a stringent action in the case of Syria.

After Ghaddafi’s demise, the Assad regime has had the attention of the international community

with regards to gross human rights violations, protracted killings and clamp down on citizen rights.

However, even with such a situation, Responsibility to Protect was not initiated in order to respond

to the humanitarian crisis faced by the Syrians as the United Nation Security Council faced a

stalemate where various United Nations Security Council Resolutions were blocked because of a

dangerous deadlock between China, United States and Russia. The only attempt that came through

was the adoption of a “Kofi Annan proposal, the only, but unsuccessful, resolution adopted was

2042/2012 which provided for sending a team of observers to verify the maintenance of the

ceasefire”4. If hundreds of thousands of Syrian lives were not saved even with the existence of

such a doctrine, then the United Nations cannot champion itself as the protector of human rights,

since the Kofi Annan proposal resolution did not relate to any action being invoked on the basis

of Responsibility to Protect.

Within the legal explanations of the implementation of the Responsibility to Protect

doctrine, there has been quite some strategic analysis and careful logic that has missed the assumed

4
Gabriele Lombardo, 'The Responsibility to Protect and the Lack of Intervention in Syria between the Protection of
Human Rights and Geopolitical Strategies' (2015) 19 (1194) The International Journal of Human Rights accessed 27
April 2018.
 Page 16

relationship between achieving the desired outcome through prevention of human rights violations

and humanitarian intervener’s actions. Recent scholarly discussion about the implementation of

this doctrine’s third pillar has sparked controversy, on the basis that external threats hinder political

will employed by countries to take preventative actions to avert mass killings. It has also been

argued that the processes and criteria for invoking armed action in accordance to Responsibility to

Protect need to be developed so that all institutions can use this according to their capacity to bring

about change and respond to such emergencies within the areas that they operate in.

Part V: Conclusion and the future

The problems and challenges faced by the United Nations Security Council highlighted in this

paper with regards to employing the Responsibility to Protect not only poses legal, principle and

practical challenges to the action of preventative humanitarian intervention but also gives rise to

an unwinnable predicament with regards to this doctrine. This dilemma is an unavoidable paradox,

arising from problems and structural control within the doctrine. If a preventative action is

propelled, those in criticism will judge both the Responsibility to Protect and the intervention

harshly, even if the initial goals of deterring such violation and atrocity have been achieved. If no

action is taken amidst the violations continuing, then the Responsibility to Protect doctrine is

criticized as being ineffective, hollow and phony. Such questions are likely to arise in future

whenever the question of human rights protection is raised.

This does not mean that the doctrine is progressing towards failure, at least not entirely

since beyond the approach of coercive elements, there lies a range of non-military and diplomatic,

methods to prevent human rights abuses taking place. The United Nations Security Council

ensures the application of the Responsibility to Protect to Protect in order to prevent cases like

Rwanda from reoccurring in future. The ability of the Responsibility to Protect to push for effective
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change has been hindered by legal questions over international law that are being raised. The

United Nations Security Council should look over these grievances to ensure that this is entrenches

as both a political and legal concept within the international affairs by introducing thresholds and

criteria that need to be followed not only before intervention, but also during it and the aftermath

of such an action. Sometimes in the aftermath of certain cases, like that of Libya, the international

community may warrant significant amount of support for the duty of a country to prevent harms

towards their populations.

References

Lombardo G, 'The Responsibility to Protect and the Lack of Intervention in Syria between

the Protection of Human Rights and Geopolitical Strategies' (2015) 19 The International Journal

of Human Rights

<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13642987.2015.1082833?src=recsys> accessed

27 April 2018

Paris R, 'The ‘Responsibility to Protect’ and the Structural Problems of Preventive

Humanitarian Intervention' (2014) 21 International Peacekeeping,

<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13533312.2014.963322?src=recsys> 26 April

2018

Report of the Secretary-General, ‘Implementing the Responsibility to Protect’, UN doc.,

A/63/677, 12 Jan. 2009 accessed 26 April 2018

Williams P, “Humanitarian Military Intervention after the Responsibility to Protect”

(2013) Genocide Matters: Ongoing Issues and Emerging Perspectives, London: Routledge,

pp.150-1