Prof. Dr. Sc. Ivan Šimonović: The Principle of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the United Nations
Atrocity crimes are on the rise. At its 20th anniversary R2P is at the critical crossroads: its future hinges on whether it becomes more effectively implemented or fades into marginalization. The UN and its member states risk losing credibility unless they take concrete steps to follow through on R2P's principles.
Divisions in the UN Security Council, especially among its permanent measures, decrease the likelihood of timely and decisive response to mass atrocities to protect populations at risk. While waiting to overcome the SC dead lock, it is necessary to: (1) focus on prevention, both structural and operational; and (2) use other UN organs to compensate for the inaction by the SC.
1. Focus on prevention, both structural and operational
1.1. To improve structural prevention, we should systematically develop national and regional prevention strategies—tailored, country owned frameworks identifying drivers of conflict and setting goals for violence and atrocity prevention. These strategies should be shared openly, enhancing peer-to-peer learning, building a culture of prevention among nations and helping to mobilize necessary financial and other resources for atrocity crimes prevention when needed. This would notably resemble the format of the Sustainable Development Goals’ voluntary national reviews.
1.2. Deployment of light-footprint civilian missions can be a powerful tool of operational prevention. Unlike large peacekeeping forces, these missions—composed of political, human rights, rule-of-law, and electoral experts—would operate with consent from host countries and work on conflict prevention, reconciliation, and transitional justice. The goal is to stabilize contexts earlier and more quietly, potentially reducing the necessity and cost of later large-scale operations.
2. Use other UN organs to compensate for the inaction by the SC
2.1. The UN General Assembly can convene when SC fails to react to atrocity crimes threats and issue its own recommendations.
2.2. ICJ’s advisory opinions lack binding power but are powerful source of legal and political pressure.
2.3. PBC should transform into a more powerful hub for atrocity prevention.
Global Momentum. We should use the 20-year R2P milestone to renew commitments and translate lessons into deeper, sustained action.
H.E. Charlotte van Baak: The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in Practice: the Netherlands
Today’s world looks dramatically different than at the time of the unanimous adoption of the Responsibility to Protect 20 years ago. Today we live in an increasingly fragmented and unstable world order, where the prevention and prosecution of atrocity crimes continue to be a challenge. If anything, the challenges we face are larger and more complex than 20 years ago.
The Kingdom of the Netherlands has been a consistent supporter of the Responsibility to Protect from its very inception, both in principle and in practice. As host country to many key international legal institutions, including the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice in The Hague, we attach particular importance to a just international order based on respect for fundamental, universal human rights and the rule of law.
Preventing atrocity crimes is the joint responsibility of all of us. The fact that R2P over the last 20 years has not prevented atrocity crimes from taking place must not deter us. Rather it must be a call to action – to learn from the past and to respond better and earlier to early warning signs.
Prof. Dr. Sc. Davorin Lapaš: The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in the Light of Trans-border Terrorism
The development of protection of fundamental human rights embodied in peremptory norms of international law, as well as the prohibition of unilateral use of force (except in self-defense), as provided for in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, have caused the change in international relations. Such a process did not necessarily make states modify their behavior, but it outlawed the unilateral use of force non-approved by the UN Security Council (UNSC). Consequently, the unilateral use of force in international law ceased to be a mere right of states on the level of “secondary norms”, i.e. in the form of reaction to the breach of another, “primary norm” of international law. In other words, the unilateral use of force in contemporary international law was supposed to turn from a “rule” into an “exception” justified by the circumstances precluding its intrinsic wrongfulness. However, from the beginning of the 21st century international community and its law have been faced with the global threat of international terrorism, which requires a multidimensional and well-analyzed approach.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sc. Petra Perišić: Responsibility to Protect in the Age of Climate Change
Climate change is not a topic typically linked to the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP). In fact, they represent two crucial but distinct international agendas. While the initial 2001 ICISS Report on RtoP did mention “natural or environmental catastrophes” in the context of RtoP, later documents, including the most authoritative 2005 World Summit Outcome Document, departed from this narrative, limiting the scope of RtoP to genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. Proposals to broaden RtoP to include environmental disasters have generally been rejected by both the framers of RtoP and by states, on the grounds that the core concept of RtoP should not be diluted. Nevertheless, an intersection between RtoP and climate change can be observed through the latter’s impact on international security and its potential to increase the risk of mass atrocity crimes. In climate-vulnerable states, environmental degradation can lead to population displacement and resource scarcity, which - especially in states with weak governance - may in turn increase the risk of such crimes. The linkage between climate change and international security has gained increasing attention in recent years, within the United Nations, but also other organizations, states and non-state actors. The „prevention“ component of RtoP is of particular relevance in this process, with preventive diplomacy and early warning systems playing a significant role.
Asisst. Prof. Dr. Sc. Rutvica Rusan Novokmet: Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and Obligations of States under International Humanitarian and International Human Rights Law
Although the adoption of the R2P principle (Responsibility to Protect) in the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document represents a significant political commitment of UN Member States to protect their populations from mass atrocities, the legal implications of the R2P are not entirely clear. On the one hand, it is acknowledged among scholars that some elements of the principle do not introduce any new legal obligations on States, which are already established in pre-existing legal instruments, such as the UN Charter, and the fundamental treaties of international humanitarian and human rights law, as well as in other instruments on the responsibility of States and international organizations, particularly in relation to the breaches of jus cogens and erga omnes obligations. On the other hand, there are still some ambiguities pertaining to specific elements of the R2P on the responsibility of States and the international community to intervene in another State in order to protect civilians facing large-scale atrocities, in case of a manifest failure of national authorities in discharging their responsibility for protection. Since the R2P principle still lacks a universal support, it is important to discuss its legal nature and the connection between the R2P and the existing international legal framework binding on States.
Dr. Prof. & Presidential Fellow Anja Matwijkiw: Responsibility to Protect (R2P): Narrow and Broad Aspects of International Stakes and their Theoretical Underpinnings
In terms of international law and international relations, justice has played a role since the 1945 Charter of the United Nations just as legal accountability for serious crimes is central to that same value and principle. With R2P, the realization of additional measures resulted in the emergence of an innovative tool that ‘reformulates sovereignty as responsibility’. However, while this may have checkmated positivist and realist schools of thought in one important sense, the R2P discourse leaves ample room for challenges, dilemmas, and paradoxes. Rather than trying to determine the correctness of the critical claim that R2P rests on ‘an unarticulated theory of international obligation’, the author of this paper compares findings and insights from the original landmark document on the topic, the 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) with subsequent United Nations developments to reveal a pattern as regards narrow and broad aspects of the discourse. Unarticulated or not, the contemporary theory that can be derived from the study can be translated along the lines of Stakeholder Jurisprudence, a position that utilizes United Nations norms, policies and standards in philosophy of law interpretation.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sc. Mario Krešić: Sovereignty as Responsibility from a Perspective of Legal Theory
In March 2000, Kofi Atta Annan posed the following question: “If humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica – to gross and systematic violations of human rights that affect every precept of our common humanity?” The R2P theory, formulated in December 2001 by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, arose from the impetus to answer the above question about sovereignty. Annan's question about sovereignty can be reformulated from a perspective of legal theory as follows: (a) must the international community limit the freedom of conduct of agencies of a state if (b) agencies of such a state exercise control over the freedom of conduct of individuals (c) in such a way that the dignity of individuals living under state control is threatened?
The key concept with which the R2P theory answers the question posed is “sovereignty as responsibility”. This concept within the R2P theory includes three elements: (a) the responsibility of state agencies to exercise control over the freedom of conduct of individuals in accordance with the principles and rules of international law; (b) the responsibility of the international community to limit the freedom of conduct of state agencies when they do not exercise control over the freedom of conduct of individuals in accordance with the principles and rules of international law; (c) the principles and rules of international law according to which state agencies are obliged to behave in such a way that individuals under their control are free from atrocity crimes. The first element of the concept of sovereignty establishes the responsibility of the state, the second element establishes the responsibility of the international community, and the third element determines the specific content of such responsibility.
Although the first and third elements of the concept of sovereignty seem novel in thinking about the state, they were formed in legal theory before the emergence of the R2P theory. The theory of sovereignty as the responsibility of states was formed in legal theory in the second half of the last century. The theory of the obligation of states to protect their populations from atrocity crimes was formed in legal theory at the end of the last and the beginning of this century. The second element of the concept of sovereignty is novel in thinking about the international community. Legal theory has not yet formed the theory of the responsibility of the international community introduced by the R2P theory. This paper will present legal-theoretical insights into the first and third element and provide the outlines of a new legal-theoretical account of the second element.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. SC. Jakob v. H. Holtermann: The Swiss Cheese Model and International Criminal Justice - on the Role of Law in a Systemic Approach to Atrocity Crime Prevention
Debates about international criminal justice (ICJ) and atrocity prevention often isolate its institutions – especially the International Criminal Court (ICC) – and burden them with unrealistically high expectations. This contribution seeks to develop an alternative, systemic deterrence-based justification for ICJ and the ICC through analogy with James Reason’s “Swiss cheese model” of accident prevention.
The model, widely used in risk management, conceptualizes safety as the outcome of multiple imperfect defensive layers – “slices” of protection each with “holes” – that together reduce the likelihood of catastrophe. This contribution argues that atrocity prevention should be understood in similar terms: genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes arise from complex causal chains, and thus require a layered system of preventive measures. The ICC constitutes only one such slice, contributing through deterrence even if imperfect and limited in scope.
Applying the system approach of the Swiss cheese model to international criminal justice, Holtermann emphasizes the importance of modest, realistic expectations: the ICC cannot eliminate atrocity crime, but it may deter some perpetrators some of the time, thereby justifying its existence as part of a broader, pluralistic prevention framework. The model helps to counter both utopian overstatements of deterrence and dismissive critiques, situating the ICC as one imperfect yet valuable contribution within a wider architecture of atrocity prevention that also includes diplomacy, development, and peacebuilding.
In this systemic perspective, the Swiss cheese model highlights the Court’s role without overstating its significance, and provides a conceptual framework that can accommodate both successes and failures of international criminal justice as part of a larger global effort to minimize mass atrocity.