Responsibility to Protect

An Introduction to R2P

The Responsibility to Protect describes an evolving concept about the duties of governments to prevent and end unconscionable acts of violence against the people of the world, wherever they occur.

The international community has a responsibility to protect the world’s populations from genocide, massive human rights abuses and other humanitarian crises. This responsibility to prevent, react to and rebuild following such crises rests first and foremost with each individual state. When states manifestly fail to protect their populations, the international community shares a collective responsibility to respond. This response should be the exercise of first peaceful, and then, if necessary, coercive, including forceful, steps to protect civilians.

The Responsibility to Protect means that no state can hide behind the concept of sovereignty while it conducts–or permits– widespread harm to its population. Nor can states turn a blind eye when these events extend beyond their borders, nor because action does not suit their narrowly-defined national interests.

These principles were set forth in a report entitled The Responsibility to Protect (PDF), issued with the support of the Government of Canada by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Today, these concepts continue to evolve and develop new meaning as the international community comes to understand that sovereignty entails responsibility.