The responsibility to protect in a world of already-existing intervention

In the face of humanitarian crises, members of the international community are often presented with a choice: engage in forms of action including military intervention or stand aside and watch the crisis unfold.

This framing ignores practices of intervention that are already taking place and contributing to the emergence and perpetuation of humanitarian crises.

Despite calling for more attention to be paid to already existing practices of intervention, literature on the Responsibility to Protect has not adequately understood their implications for the legitimacy and likely effectiveness of military intervention.

This paper argues that it is a mistake to respond to already existing intervention by simply adding to the R2P, for instance, duties to engage in structural prevention and support refugees. What is needed, rather, is a more fundamental rethink that departs from the R2P.

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