The Responsibility To Protect
This article provides a contextual background for understanding the issues Operation Broken Silence works on. It is part of our resource list for students, teachers, and the curious and was last updated November 2023. For more information about what's happening in Sudan and our work, please sign up for our email list.
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is an international norm that seeks to ensure the world never again fails to halt genocide and other mass atrocity crimes.
R2P emerged in the aftermath of the international community’s failure to respond to mass atrocity catastrophes committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. The International Committee on Intervention and State Sovereignty developed the concept of R2P during 2001. The Responsibility to Protect was unanimously adopted in 2005 at the UN World Summit, the largest gathering of Heads of State and Government in history.
In paragraphs 138 and 139 of the World Summit Outcome Document, R2P is introduced as:
138. Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. We accept that responsibility and will act in accordance with it. The international community should, as appropriate, encourage and help States to exercise this responsibility and support the United Nations in establishing an early warning capability.
139. The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In this context, we are prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. We stress the need for the General Assembly to continue consideration of the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and its implications, bearing in mind the principles of the Charter and international law. We also intend to commit ourselves, as necessary and appropriate, to helping States build capacity to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and to assisting those which are under stress before crises and conflicts break out.
The Three Pillars of R2P
Based on the description above, The Responsibility to Protect is seen as having three core areas of focus, or pillars:
1. Individual State Responsibility. Every state has the responsibility to protect its populations from four mass atrocity crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing.
2. International Support To Individual States. The wider international community has the responsibility to encourage and assist individual states in meeting that responsibility.
3. International Intervention. If a state is manifestly failing to protect its populations, the international community must be prepared to take appropriate collective action, in a timely and decisive manner and in accordance with the UN Charter.
Addressing A Common Misperception
R2P is often discussed as only pertaining to outside military intervention; however, that is just one component of R2P, and the least pursued option to protect civilians at that. The 2005 World Summit Outcome Document cited above clearly states “The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.”
Every day, many governments act to protect their citizens and assist other states in doing the same, often without any military or security support whatsoever. This can and does take on many forms, including public investment in at-risk communities, humanitarian aid, international diplomacy, improving educational outcomes, supporting the work of truth and reconciliation efforts and judicial systems, and more. Important and preventative work like this makes societies more resilient to genocide and mass atrocity crimes even if it goes largely unnoticed.
Where R2P has leaned toward armed actions, it is often in the form of security assistance to governments that are struggling to protect their citizens, removing such assistance from governments that are threatening their citizens, intelligence sharing, arms embargoes and sanctions enforcement, enforcement of the rule of law, and other similar actions. R2P has only rarely been used to sanction direct military intervention by outside states, such as the 2011 NATO-led intervention in Libya.
R2P has been invoked in more than 100 UN Security Council, General Assembly, and Human Rights Council resolutions, as well as broader resolutions about preventing genocide and armed conflict and restricting the small arms trade. Individual countries have also sought to boost their own efforts with regards to R2P, including the United States, which has codified into federal law several approaches to preventing, responding, and ending genocide and other mass atrocity crimes.
From Learning To Action
Operation Broken Silence is building a global movement to empower Sudanese heroes in the war-torn periphery regions of Sudan, including teachers in Yida Refugee Camp. Teachers just like Chana.
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