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Since its inception, the responsibility to protect (R2P) principle has been progressively narrowed in its scope and application in order to capture widespread support from governments and civil society. However, as this chapter will explore, R2P came perilously close to failing to recognize the gendered dimension of mass atrocity crimes and the prevention of these crimes. The chapter examines how R2P came to be characterized as ‘gender blind’, and details how, since 2006, the principle’s supporters have engaged and responded to this challenge. The author argues that there is a need to continually theorize and engage in areas of common discourse to collectively progress the mutual agenda of gender equitable human protection.

The African Union has been acclaimed for its effort in adopting policies that seek to protect civilian populations from mass atrocity crimes. It has transited from the principle of non-interference to non-indifference through the adoption of Article 4(h) of the Constitutive Act of 2000, which enjoins it to intervene in respect of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. Article 4(h) and the responsibility to protect share striking commonalities—both are rooted in the notion of sovereignty as responsibility. However, limited progress has been made in translating these normative principles into concrete action. This chapter notes the lingering issues of sovereignty and limited capacity for enforcement, as well as the state-centric approach to prevention without regard for local sources of resilience. Effective implementation of R2P should address the challenges of cooperation between the AU and other organs, and consider hybrid forms of prevention which exist in many African states.

This chapter looks at Arab perspectives on the responsibility to protect, both at a conventional, state-focused level, and at the level of civil society. The study shows that the Arab region’s views on R2P are varied, nuanced, and subject to change, varying not only between governments and citizens, but also among citizens themselves. The positions expose a widespread tension between a strong attachment to sovereignty, and a willingness to provide support to populations facing danger, in particular fellow Arabs and Muslims. At the same time, the region is united over the perception of an international double standard, which, from an Arab perspective, is symbolized at its worst by the Security Council’s inaction on Palestine. Arab reactions to other conflicts, such as Libya or Syria, however, indicate that although explicit references to the concept are rare, a lively debate on the very idea of R2P is going on in the region.

There is a tendency to view R2P diffusion in the Asia Pacific region as a function of ‘norm containment’, which explains endorsement of R2P as a result of the weakening, deconstruction, or dilution of R2P to render it more compatible with the region’s state-centred security norms and practices. This chapter demonstrates, however, that R2P has diffused in the Asia Pacific region through a dynamic process of negotiation and compromise between international R2P norm advocates and Asia Pacific actors, which has witnessed concession and accommodation on both sides. Through case study analysis of how the governments of Japan and India have engaged with R2P, the chapter argues that the Asia Pacific’s socialization to R2P is most aptly characterized as a balance of R2P norm containment and localization, witnessed in Asia Pacific actors shaping the contours of the R2P norm and accommodating its prescriptions through gradual, incremental normative and institutional change.

This chapter analyzes the systematic relationship of Carl Schmitt’s oeuvre to rhetoric, arguing that his work cannot be detached from its engagement in a simultaneously metaphysical and historical polemic. The encounter between history and metaphysics manifests in the dimension of the commonplace. Schmitt’s contributions to political theory can be understood as attempts to shift the commonplaces through which his time defines itself. Tracing the influence of Schmitt’s early literary criticism on his legal writing, the chapter demonstrates that for him, literature is a school of rhetoric, an exemplary dimension in more than one sense: it is a normative, ethical, and stylistic authority. While Schmitt’s books are contributions to specific legal, political, and critical discourse, they also claim to contribute to the great and urgent concerns of a community. This dimension inherits the genus grande and places his oeuvre at the limits of rhetoric.

Policy practitioners and scholars have tended to treat the responsibility to protect (R2P) and peacebuilding as separate domains. This chapter, in contrast, argues that these two domains are more closely connected than both the policy discourse and much of the academic literature would suggest. Peacebuilding appears to be an integral part of R2P, and peacebuilding strategies aimed at reducing the risks of conflict relapse are core strategies for preventing atrocity crimes. Further, the use of coercive military force to stop an imminent or actual atrocity crime creates its own requirement for post-crisis peacebuilding. Thus, closer analysis of the relationship between peacebuilding and R2P would benefit both practitioners and scholars.

This chapter examines how the agenda of prevention of armed conflict relates to the principle of the responsibility to protect (R2P). While R2P was originally assumed to be fully compatible with the goals and principles of traditional conflict prevention, subsequent research has disentangled the relationship between R2P and conflict prevention, arguing that conflict prevention is a necessary but not a sufficient component of atrocity prevention, and that atrocity prevention needs to include a strategy for deterring potential perpetrators. Recent scholarship has started to examine the implications of marrying R2P to international criminal law categories. What follows from R2P’s move to crimes is an individualization of the principle, as well as a shift towards partiality, intrusion, and coercion. This means that where a threat of atrocity crimes occurs in the context of armed conflict, it cannot simply be assumed that R2P and conflict prevention are pulling in the same direction.

This chapter examines the international response to Côte d’Ivoire’s post-election crisis in 2010/11. In particular, it analyses the elements that relate to the responsibility to protect (R2P), including how R2P informed the political and practical responses to the crisis. It identifies the major contentions/issues that the case highlights about the nature and future of R2P. It argues that despite the relative inattention paid to this case in the academic literature to date, the experience of Côte d’Ivoire offers important insights into the opportunities and challenges associated with all three pillars of R2P and recalls debates around the responsibility to rebuild as well as the emergent relationship between the R2P framework and protection of civilians in United Nations peace operations.

This chapter examines the application of R2P to Darfur by the UN Security Council. It outlines the Security Council’s engagement with Darfur prior to the 2005 agreement on R2P, and subsequent engagement with R2P in resolutions on Darfur. Drawing on original interview material, this chapter reveals the negotiations that led to the Security Council’s first application of R2P to a specific conflict. It argues that Darfur does not make a good ‘test case’ of R2P as the escalation and height of the Darfur conflict occurred prior to the international agreement on R2P in 2005. This means that the early warning and preventive components of R2P were not tested in the case of Darfur.

Using Peru as an example, this chapter explores gender-based violence in conflict and transitional justice processes through a lens of decolonial feminism. Beginning with an analysis of colonialism and gender, it provides conceptual and historical context on the complex social relations between race, class, and gender. The chapter then turns to an exploration of community perspectives on sexual violence during the Peruvian internal armed conflict (1980–2000), explained through the metaphor of el patrón. By linking colonial and modern experiences of violence, the chapter illustrates the historical continuity of gender-based violence and challenges assumptions about the nature of victimhood and the benevolence of the state. The chapter examines the complex nature of victimhood in this context and the multipurpose use of sexual violence by the military, suggesting that a decolonial feminist approach is necessary to establish accountable legal systems and effective transitional justice processes.

The “systemic turn” in deliberative democractic theory builds off the critical insight that one instance or site of deliberation does not legitimate an entire political system. But accepting too easily that non-deliberative parts can contribute to a deliberative sum can risk deliberative democracy’s aspirations for reform. This chapter examines three evolving areas of deliberative lawmaking—administrative lawmaking, districting commissions, and deliberative plebiscites—that underscore the ongoing relevance and promise of “second wave” deliberative democratic institutional design. The “notice and comment” structure of administrative rule-making, for instance, can invite the admission of multiple voices into the lawmaking process, especially when combined with the court’s role in incentivizing such practice. The trend toward nonpartisan or bipartisan commissions establishing legislative district lines can also generate powerful deliberative democratic dividends. Similarly, practices in plebisicitary democracy—whether through instances such as citizen policy juries or other directly democratic mechanisms—can contribute toward the deliberative democratization of law and society.

Authorized in the wake of the Srebrenica massacre and Rwandan genocide, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was the first of two UN peacekeeping missions to receive an explicit protection of civilians (POC) mandate in 2000. This chapter discusses the challenges the UN mission faced in implementing this POC mandate over 15 years of existence. It analyses how lessons from early protection crises led the mission to develop a series of innovative tools for a better peacekeeping response, up to the establishment of the Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) in 2013. This chapter concludes with some lessons including the need for a shift from a largely UN-centric and troop-intensive approach to physical protection to a greater focus on strengthening national protection capacities as part of a broader political/stabilization strategy, which encourages and empowers the host government to shoulder its primary responsibility to protect its citizens.

The responsibility to protect (R2P) will soon face significant stress. As a perceived Western value, it could suffer as Western power recedes. It could also be undermined by Western double standards towards multilateral institutions and processes. To survive, R2P must be embraced by non-Western civilizations. They can do this by demonstrating that their civilizations share common values with the West, common values which actually have deep roots in the East. This chapter argues that since the sanctity of human life is a universal value, R2P could be embraced by other civilizations and survive. If R2P could be embedded into global norms of human responsibilities alongside those of human rights, it is even more likely to survive.

This chapter analyses acceptance and implementation of the norm of the responsibility to protect by the European Union and its member states. Although European states have accepted the norm, and supported its development at the UN, progress in implementing it has been patchier. The chapter looks at the degree to which there has been programmatic, bureaucratic and operational implementation of the norm by the EU in particular. It finds there are wide divergences in Europe over the use of military force with regard to pillar 3 of R2P, a lack of EU bureaucratic capacity and will to implement pillars 1 and 2 of R2P, and confusion over the clarity of the norm which has led to the conflation of conflict prevention with mass atrocity prevention.

This chapter explores the contributions of feminist jurisprudence to feminist theory, highlighting several strands of legal analysis that productively challenge feminists more generally to think beyond settled boundaries. The 1980s are remembered as the heyday of feminist jurisprudence in the United States, an impression that rightly acknowledges the vigorous and generative nature of debate in this period but that risks overlooking the significance of more recent developments in feminist legal theory. Focusing on the ideas of intersectionality, gender and sexuality, and masculinities, the chapter demonstrates new directions in feminist legal theory that have emerged in the wake of the sameness/difference debates.

This chapter examines the implementation of R2P within the UN system, focusing especially on the evolving role of the Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General. It sketches the institutional and political context that shaped the decision to appoint a UN Special Adviser, reflects on how the mandates and practices associated with this position have developed over the years, and assesses how the normative, operational, and institutional challenges ahead are shaping up for the implementation of R2P within the UN. The chapter argues that the position of Special Adviser is still evolving and far from firmly entrenched in the UN bureaucracy. Since its future prospects, and those of the related post of Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, remain to be determined, the chapter addresses the mandates for both positions in some detail and puts forward some suggestions for how they could be further developed in the future.

This chapter provides a brief overview of the concept of governance, comparing Foucauldian, mainstream, and feminist approaches. It compares central tenets of governmentality and governance, and presents feminist critiques of both. To demonstrate feminist contributions to debates on governance, it analyzes neoliberal imperatives in new governance regimes, gendered dimensions of governance and governmentality neglected by mainstream approaches, and feminist engagement with governance through civil society and NGOization. It demonstrates that while the concept of governance offers new perspectives on the state and the operation of power in an era of neoliberal globalization, the neoliberal reconfiguration of the state and the devolution of responsibilities to the market and civil society pose new challenges for feminists in dealing with far-reaching changes in governmentality and governance.

The responsibility to protect and the International Criminal Court share a recent history and a similar normative structure. The responsibilities to protect and prosecute reside first and foremost in the state and both normative regimes insist that a residual responsibility rests with international society. Yet R2P has not sought to allocate residual responsibility to an institution that notionally transcends power politics. For some critics, R2P should follow the ICC’s lead and delegate decision-making on humanitarian intervention to a supranational body. By focusing on the continuing politicization of international criminal justice under the ICC this chapter illustrates how R2P’s difficulties cannot be fixed by simply creating independent judicial bodies. A more consistent approach to R2P is contingent on a changed conception of P5 responsibility. Changing legal frameworks without changing this political reality will simply add to the disappointment of those who lament the compromises made in the World Summit Outcome Document.

On 28 February 2008, Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga signed the Kenyan National Dialogue and Reconciliation Act and the Principles of Partnership establishing a coalition government. These agreements marked the end of one of the darkest moments in Kenyan history: eight weeks of bloodshed following the contested presidential elections of 27 December 2007. This case has generated a significant degree of interest, particularly from the perspective of R2P. The overwhelmingly positive appraisal of this case has, however, generated a number of common misconceptions surrounding the post-election crisis in Kenya. These relate to nearly all aspects of the crisis: from the question of what facilitated the response and how the mediation unfolded to the degree it can be deemed a success story. Consequently, some of the key lessons from this case—which may be relevant for halting atrocities in other contexts—have gone largely unnoticed.

This chapter explores why Latin American countries have endorsed, or objected to, the principle of the responsibility to protect. Through an exploration of the various positions held by Latin American (LA) countries in international discussions on R2P the chapter aims to account for the role that the region has played in efforts to develop and consolidate the R2P norm. It finds that those countries that experienced mass atrocities have been more willing to accept R2P. Assessments of the relative costs and benefits of a multilateral solution to atrocity crimes have been influenced by the countries’ own record of massive human rights violations and democratization process. The chapter also situates current R2P discourse and practice in a context of regional contestation over human rights and rampant criminal homicidal violence. It concludes that in such a context the capacity of LA countries to engage normatively with R2P will most likely wane.