Since its adoption at the 2005 World Summit, the ‘responsibility to protect’ principle (R2P) has been refined and clarified through the work of Ed Luck, who is Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General with a focus on R2P. His work can be summed up as ‘three pillars, four crimes’.

The four crimes covered are: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. The three pillars are: the primary responsibility of states to protect their civilians from these crimes, the responsibility of the international community to provide assistance to states in doing so, and – if the first two pillars fail – its responsibility to take ‘timely and decisive’ action.

R2P has also been referenced in Security Council resolutions (Resolution 1674 on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict and Resolution 1706 authorising UN peacekeeping troops to Darfur).

Despite repeated reassurances that military intervention is effectively the last option in the panoply of actions that can be taken as part of the last pillar, R2P still causes confusion and controversy. Opponents have argued that it is an interventionist doctrine that will be supplied selectively. Some R2P advocates have also diluted the principle by demanding it be applied to situations arising from natural disasters.

• Click here to view UNA-UK recommendations on strengthening UN mechanisms relating to human rights (submitted as evidence to the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission on 9 December 2009)
• UN APPG Francis Deng
  ‘Prevention is everybody's reponsibility'’ November 2009
• Roundtable with Francis Deng,
  Attended by UNA-UK's expert in Human Rights and peace and security, November 2009
• Article in New World' Responsibility to protect, Winter 2009
• UN APPG Gareth Evans ‘The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All’, 18 March 2009
• UN APPG Colin Keating
  ‘The United Nations Security Council: From Rwanda to Darfur, Lessons Not Learned’, 16 May 2007

Key R2P texts

The Secretary-General's report on 'Implementing the Responsibility to Protect' 16 February 2009

In Larger Freedom: Report of the Secretary-General [link]

Security Council Resolution 1674 (contains first official SC reference to R2P)