Advocacy Networks And The Responsibility To Protect

This book contributes to existing debates on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) by demonstrating new advocacy strategies and the greater interconnectedness of various R2P proponents. In 2021, the UN General Assembly adopted a new resolution on R2P, which reaffirmed its commitment from the 2005 World Summit Outcome and put R2P on the annual agenda. For many R2P proponents, this was another manifestation of worldwide R2P relevance and of growing support among UN members to protect people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Yet the existing crises in Myanmar, Venezuela, Belarus, Syria and many others revealed the widening gap between the discourse and practice. This book aims to find out what keeps the concept alive despite its indisputable pitfalls. In contrast to existing studies that treat the R2P endorsement or contestation as intertwined processes of norm evolution, it argues that the status of R2P has been accomplished by the conscious politics of its advocates operating in complex global networks. As such, the book puts emphasis on the agency of R2P champions and examines who keeps the idea resonating and how they manage to preserve its worldwide relevance. Rather than proposing a new model of advocacy, the book aims to pinpoint the politics of R2P's circulation, the importance of individual R2P champions and their interconnectedness through innovative forms of cooperation within complex networks. This book will be of much interest to students of the R2P, diplomacy, human rights, foreign policy and International Relations.

"This book contributes to existing debates on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) by demonstrating new advocacy strategies and the greater inter-connectedness of various R2P proponents. In 2021, the UN General Assembly adopted a new resolution on R2P, which reaffirmed its commitment from the 2005 World Summit Outcome and put R2P on the annual agenda. For many R2P proponents, this was another manifestation of worldwide R2P relevance and of growing support among UN members to protect people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. Yet the existing crises in Myanmar, Venezuela, Belarus, Syria and many others revealed the widening gap between the discourse and practice. This book aims to find out what keeps the concept alive despite its indisputable pitfalls. In contrast to existing studies that treat the R2P endorsement or contestation as intertwined processes of norm evolution, it argues that the status of R2P has been accomplished by the conscious politics of its advocates operating in complex global networks. As such, the book puts emphasis on the agency of R2P champions and examines who keeps the idea resonating and how they manage to preserve its worldwide relevance. Rather than proposing a new model of advocacy, the book aims to pinpoint the politics of R2P's circulation, the importance of individual R2P champions and their interconnectedness through innovative forms of cooperation within complex networks. This book will be of much interest to students of the Responsibility to Protect, diplomacy, human rights, foreign policy and International Relations"--

Responsibility to Protect: Research, bibliography, background. Supplementary volume to the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty

This book presents the views of various international law and human rights experts on the contested meaning, scope of application, value and viability of R2P; the principle of the Responsibility to Protect . R2P refers to the notion that the international community has a legal responsibility to protect civilians against the potential or ongoing occurrence of the mass atrocity crimes of genocide, large scale war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. R2P allows for intervention where the individual State is unable or unwilling to so protect its people or is in fact a perpetrator. The book addresses also the controversial issue of whether intervention by States implementing R2P with or without the endorsement of the United Nations Security Council constitutes a State act of aggression or instead is legally justified and not an infringement on the offending State’s sovereign jurisdiction. The adverse impact on global peace and security of the failure to protect civilians from mass atrocity crimes has put in stark relief the need to address anew the principle of ‘responsibility to protect’ and the feasibility and wisdom of its application and this book is a significant contribution to that effort. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Human Rights.

This book provides an in-depth introduction to, and analysis of, the issues relating to the implementation of the recent Responsibility to Protect principle in international relations The Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) has come a long way in a short space of time. It was endorsed by the General Assembly of the UN in 2005, and unanimously reaffirmed by the Security Council in 2006 (Resolution 1674) and 2009 (Resolution 1894). UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has identified the challenge of implementing RtoP as one of the cornerstones of his Secretary-Generalship. The principle has also become part of the working language of international engagement with humanitarian crises and has been debated in relation to almost every recent international crisis – including Sudan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Georgia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Darfur and Somalia. Concentrating mainly on implementation challenges including the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities, strengthening the UN’s capacity to respond, and the role of regional organizations, this book introducing readers to contemporary debates on R2P and provides the first book-length analysis of the implementation agenda. The book will be of great interest to students of the responsibility to protect, humanitarian intervention, human rights, foreign policy, security studies and IR and politics in general.

This book evaluates the extent to which the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) has consolidated as a norm in international society. A consolidated norm in international society is defined here as a regularised pattern of behaviour that is widely accepted as appropriate within a given social context. The analysis is based on the assumption that the R2P could be regarded as a consolidated norm if it were applied consistently when genocide and other mass atrocities occur; and if international responses routinely conformed to the core principles inherent in the R2P: seeking government consent, multilateralism, prevention and regionalism. This book employs Finnemore and Sikkink’s norm lifecycle model to determine the putative norm’s degree of consolidation, with in-depth case studies of the international responses to crises in Darfur and Kenya serving to illuminate the findings. It advances the argument that, whilst the R2P had fully emerged as a prospective norm by 2005, it has not yet fully consolidated as an international norm. The R2P has been remarkably successful at pervading the international discourse but has been somewhat less successful at consistency in implementation in terms of adherence to its core principles as outlined above (the qualitative dimension of the R2P). Furthermore, it has been least successful, to date, in terms of consistency across cases in terms of resolve and tenacity. The volume concludes with a reflection on the norm's progress so far, and its prospects for further consolidation, assuming the R2P continues on its current trajectory. This book will be of much interest to students of the Responsibility to Protect, humanitarian intervention, international law, security studies and IR.

In Activists beyond Borders, Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink examine a type of pressure group that has been largely ignored by political analysts: networks of activists that coalesce and operate across national frontiers. Their targets may be international organizations or the policies of particular states. Historical examples of such transborder alliances include anti-slavery and woman suffrage campaigns. In the past two decades, transnational activism has had a significant impact in human rights, especially in Latin America, and advocacy networks have strongly influenced environmental politics as well. The authors also examine the emergence of an international campaign around violence against women.

Although the Genocide Convention was already adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1945, it was only in the late 1990s that groups of activists emerged calling for military interventions to halt mass atrocities. The question of who these anti-genocide activists are and what motivates them to call for the use of violence to end violence is undoubtedly worthy of exploration. Based on extensive field research, Anti-genocide Activists and the Responsibility to Protect analyses the ideological convictions that motivate two groups of anti-genocide activists: East Timor solidarity activists and Responsibility to Protect (R2P)-advocates. The book argues that there is an existential undercurrent to the call for mass atrocity interventions; that mass atrocities shock the activists’ belief in a humanity that they hold to be sacred. The book argues that the ensuing rise of anti-genocide activism signals a shift in humanitarian sensibilities to human suffering and violence which may have substantial implications for moral judgements on human lives at peril in the humanitarian and human rights community. This book provides a fascinating insight into the worldviews of activists which will be of interest to practitioners and researchers of human rights activism, humanitarian advocacy and peace building.