The Responsibility to Protect

Usually, you need to prepare for tutorials so that you have something to say and some material to cite. Lectures and related texts provide supporting material, which you need to respond to and evaluate, using questions such as: Is the argument valid and relevant? Is the text biased? How do the ideas in the text relate to the specific question being discussed in the tutorial? You can ask similar questions in response to other students' contributions in the tutorial. At the end of a discussion, you might aim to summarize the points made, and achieve a resolution.

Sources:

Baylis, J., Smith, S., & Owens, P. (2008).  The Globalization of World Politics (4th ed.).  Oxford University Press.

Chazal, E., & Moore, J. (2013). Oxford EAP C1. Oxford University Press.

Read the text quickly to answer the following question:

Who or what does the text talk about protecting?

The Responsibility to Protect, the 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), attempted to resolve the tension between the competing claims of sovereignty and human rights by building a new consensus around the principles that should govern the protection of endangered peoples.  The principle of responsibility to protect was adopted by the UN General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit, a move described as 'a revolution ... in international affairs' by one commentator (Lindberg, 2005).  But what is the 'responsibility to protect’, how was it adopted, and what does it mean for the future of humanitarian intervention?

The commission argued that states have the primary responsibility to protect their citizens.  When they are unable or unwilling to do so, or when they deliberately terrorize their citizens, 'the principle of non - intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect' (ICISS, 2001: xi).  The report broadens this responsibility to encompass not only the responsibility to react to humanitarian crises but also the responsibility to prevent such crises and the 'responsibility to rebuild' failed and tyrannical states.  This reframing of the debate away from the question of whether states have a right of intervention towards the question of where responsibility rests for protecting endangered peoples formed the basis of an attempt to generate a new international political consensus supporting what the ICISS report calls' intervention for human protection purposes' (ICISS, 2001: xiii).

Sources:

Baylis, J., Smith, S., & Owens, P. (2008).  The Globalization of World Politics (4th ed.).  Oxford University Press.

Chazal, E., & Moore, J. (2013). Oxford EAP C1. Oxford University Press.

Sources:

Baylis, J., Smith, S., & Owens, P. (2008).  The Globalization of World Politics (4th ed.).  Oxford University Press.

Chazal, E., & Moore, J. (2013). Oxford EAP C1. Oxford University Press.

Read the text again, and answer the two questions that follow

The Responsibility to Protect, the 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), attempted to resolve the tension between the competing claims of sovereignty and human rights by building a new consensus around the principles that should govern the protection of endangered peoples.  The principle of responsibility to protect was adopted by the UN General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit, a move described as 'a revolution ... in international affairs' by one commentator (Lindberg, 2005).  But what is the 'responsibility to protect’, how was it adopted, and what does it mean for the future of humanitarian intervention?

The commission argued that states have the primary responsibility to protect their citizens.  When they are unable or unwilling to do so, or when they deliberately terrorize their citizens, 'the principle of non - intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect' (ICISS, 2001: xi).  The report broadens this responsibility to encompass not only the responsibility to react to humanitarian crises but also the responsibility to prevent such crises and the 'responsibility to rebuild' failed and tyrannical states.  This reframing of the debate away from the question of whether states have a right of intervention towards the question of where responsibility rests for protecting endangered peoples formed the basis of an attempt to generate a new international political consensus supporting what the ICISS report calls' intervention for human protection purposes' (ICISS, 2001: xiii).

Sources:

Baylis, J., Smith, S., & Owens, P. (2008).  The Globalization of World Politics (4th ed.).  Oxford University Press.

Chazal, E., & Moore, J. (2013). Oxford EAP C1. Oxford University Press.