Introduction

This chapter questions the view, articulated by both 3 Luck and Nicholas Michel, that the principle of the ‘responsibility to protect’ (RtoP) – as authoritatively interpreted by states at the 2005 United Nations (UN) Summit – no longer includes humanitarian intervention. In the very strictest sense, of course, this view is correct: if one defines humanitarian intervention narrowly as the unilateral use of military force within the jurisdiction of a sovereign state, without that state's consent, in order to achieve humanitarian objectives, then Articles 138 and 139 of the Summit Outcome Document (WSO Document) seem to preclude its practice. Member States have explicitly allocated the responsibility to protect to the UN, and more specifically the Security Council; any military action necessitated by that responsibility would therefore be authorised by the Council. But as I have argued elsewhere, this narrow definition precludes us from considering a number of instances of intervention with humanitarian purposes, where consent has been more ambiguous (or in some cases coerced). It would also exclude the March 2011 NATO-led action against Libya, which was authorised by Security Council Resolution 1973 – a case that is likely to be highly significant for the evolution of the principle of RtoP. Moreover, suggesting that RtoP no longer encompasses humanitarian intervention is to concede too much to those members of international society that have opposed the principle's implementation. As the Libyan case reminds us, though measures short of force are always to be preferred, coercion must remain part of the range of legitimate tools used to exercise the international community's responsibility to protect. This is particularly so given the emphasis of Articles 138 and 139 on the prevention and response to international crimes.

In the sections that follow, I will discuss the positive role that the concept of RtoP has played in changing the nature of the debate on the international community's rights and responsibilities in addressing the threat or commission of mass atrocity crimes. Nonetheless, I will also suggest that the UN Secretary-General's 2009 report gives insufficient attention to how international actors can and should act upon their responsibilities under so-called pillar three. More specifically, it does not help to clarify how the responsibilities for the collective use of force are to be distributed.