Whose Responsibility to Protect? The Duties of Humanitarian Intervention
Author:
James Pattison a
(Show Biography)
| Affiliation: | a Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom |
DOI:
10.1080/15027570802510015
Publication Frequency:
4 issues per year
Subjects:
Ethics Philosophy;
Military Studies;
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Abstract
The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty's report, The Responsibility to Protect, argues that when a state is unable or unwilling to uphold its citizens' basic human rights, such as in cases of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity, the international community has a responsibility to protect these citizens by undertaking humanitarian intervention. An essential issue, however, remains unresolved: which particular agent in the international community has the duty to intervene? In this article, I critically examine four ways of assigning this duty. Although I highlight the benefits of institutionalising the responsibility to protect, I argue that we should adopt, in the short term at least, a consequentialist solution: humanitarian intervention should be the responsibility of the intervener that will be the most effective.
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| Keywords: Humanitarian intervention; the responsibility to protect; the duty to intervene; consequentialism |
| view references (42) : view citations |

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