Eleventh Global Studies Conference

Abstract

The doctrine of responsibility to protect was developed in order to address the issue of mass atrocities, which were brought about by intrastate and ethnic conflicts as well as oppressive regimes throughout the world. It embraced the idea of the immunity of human rights and the moral need to intervene in cases that shock human conscience, and posed a challenge to the conventional understanding of sovereignty by redefining it as “responsibility.” However, the controversial implementation of the doctrine in Libya in 2011 to 2012 and its non-implementation in the case of Syria despite widespread humanitarian crisis in terms of civilian casualties and massive population displacement have raised questions as to the utility of the doctrine in practice. This paper thus demonstrates moral, legal, and practical weaknesses of R2P in relation to the Libyan and Syrian cases, and discusses its relevance/applicability as a mechanism to respond to current humanitarian crises.