A critical overview of the responsibility to protect

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) concept and its predecessor, humanitarian intervention. It analyzes humanitarian intervention and Responsibility to Protect in order to understand the R2P’s reference to human insecurities. The thesis aims to understand the gap between how R2P was framed and how it is put into practice. Although R2P claims to be a solution to human insecurities and was framed to be an improvement in humanitarian interventions, it fails to respond human insecurities in cases of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Therefore, in this thesis, it is questioned “whether R2P is an improvement upon humanitarian intervention.” The cases examined in the thesis indicate how R2P’s referent of security differs in every different event.