Responsibility to Protect (R2P) or (RtoP) is a principle that is based on the obligation or the right of sovereign states to protect their populations and other populations that may be at risk of genocide and other atrocities that can threaten humanity. R2P has three pillars:
“Pillar One: Every state has the Responsibility to Protect its populations from four mass atrocity crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
Pillar Two: The wider international community has the responsibility to encourage and assist individual states in meeting that responsibility.
Pillar Three: If a state is manifestly failing to protect its populations, the international community must be prepared to take appropriate collective action, …show more content…
These conversations started because of the horrific tragedies that occurred in Rwanda Somalia, and the former Yugoslavia in the 1990’s that threaten and even infringed upon human rights. The questions that stood out was whether states had absolute sovereignty over their own affairs or if the international community can intervene in a sovereign state affairs for humanitarian reasons. According to Westphalian Sovereignty a state has absolute power within its own territory persons of necessity have no legal standing against a sovereign state. Therefore, intervening in a sovereign state’s affairs would have been peculiar to the international community. The United Nations (UN) Security Council, in 1999 failed to authorise actions to spot or curb “ethnic cleansing” in Kosovo. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) took the responsibility to do an aerial bombardment without permission of the UN Security Council which caused a rift in the international community because some saw it as a violation of the prohibition of the Use of Force. Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General of the UN, recalled the failures of the Security Council, in his Millennium Report in 2000, to react decisively to the tragedies that were occurring in the various countries. As a result of those tragedies Kofi Annan asked all member states how are we supposed to respond to tragedies that offend
“Pillar One: Every state has the Responsibility to Protect its populations from four mass atrocity crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
Pillar Two: The wider international community has the responsibility to encourage and assist individual states in meeting that responsibility.
Pillar Three: If a state is manifestly failing to protect its populations, the international community must be prepared to take appropriate collective action, …show more content…
These conversations started because of the horrific tragedies that occurred in Rwanda Somalia, and the former Yugoslavia in the 1990’s that threaten and even infringed upon human rights. The questions that stood out was whether states had absolute sovereignty over their own affairs or if the international community can intervene in a sovereign state affairs for humanitarian reasons. According to Westphalian Sovereignty a state has absolute power within its own territory persons of necessity have no legal standing against a sovereign state. Therefore, intervening in a sovereign state’s affairs would have been peculiar to the international community. The United Nations (UN) Security Council, in 1999 failed to authorise actions to spot or curb “ethnic cleansing” in Kosovo. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) took the responsibility to do an aerial bombardment without permission of the UN Security Council which caused a rift in the international community because some saw it as a violation of the prohibition of the Use of Force. Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General of the UN, recalled the failures of the Security Council, in his Millennium Report in 2000, to react decisively to the tragedies that were occurring in the various countries. As a result of those tragedies Kofi Annan asked all member states how are we supposed to respond to tragedies that offend