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The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All
"Never again!" the world has vowed time and again since the Holocaust. Yet genocide, ethnic cleansing, and other mass atrocity crimes continue to shock our consciences --from the killing fields of Cambodia to the machetes of Rwanda to the agony of Darfur.
Gareth Evans has grappled with these issues firsthand. As Australian foreign minister, he was a key broker of the United Nations peace plan for Cambodia. As president of the International Crisis Group, he now works on the prevention and resolution of scores of conflicts and crises worldwide. The primary architect of and leading authority on the Responsibility to Protect ("R2P"), he shows here how this new international norm can once and for all prevent a return to the killing fields.
"The Responsibility to Protect" captures a simple and powerful idea. The primary responsibility for protecting its own people from mass atrocity crimes lies with the state itself. State sovereignty implies responsibility, not a license to kill. But when a state is unwilling or unable to halt or avert such crimes, the wider international community then has a collective responsibility to take whatever action is necessary. R2P emphasizes preventive action above all. That includes assistance for states struggling to contain potential crises and for effective rebuilding after a crisis or conflict to tackle its underlying causes. R2P's primary tools are persuasion and support, not military or other coercion. But sometimes it is right to fight: faced with another Rwanda, the world cannot just stand by.
R2P was unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit. But many misunderstandings persist about its scope and limits. And much remains to be done to solidify political support and to build institutional capacity. Evans shows, compellingly, how big a break R2P represents from the past, and how, with its acceptance in principle and effective application in practice, the promise of "Never again!" can at last become a reality.
Gareth Evans has grappled with these issues firsthand. As Australian foreign minister, he was a key broker of the United Nations peace plan for Cambodia. As president of the International Crisis Group, he now works on the prevention and resolution of scores of conflicts and crises worldwide. The primary architect of and leading authority on the Responsibility to Protect ("R2P"), he shows here how this new international norm can once and for all prevent a return to the killing fields.
"The Responsibility to Protect" captures a simple and powerful idea. The primary responsibility for protecting its own people from mass atrocity crimes lies with the state itself. State sovereignty implies responsibility, not a license to kill. But when a state is unwilling or unable to halt or avert such crimes, the wider international community then has a collective responsibility to take whatever action is necessary. R2P emphasizes preventive action above all. That includes assistance for states struggling to contain potential crises and for effective rebuilding after a crisis or conflict to tackle its underlying causes. R2P's primary tools are persuasion and support, not military or other coercion. But sometimes it is right to fight: faced with another Rwanda, the world cannot just stand by.
R2P was unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit. But many misunderstandings persist about its scope and limits. And much remains to be done to solidify political support and to build institutional capacity. Evans shows, compellingly, how big a break R2P represents from the past, and how, with its acceptance in principle and effective application in practice, the promise of "Never again!" can at last become a reality.
349 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
About the author
Gareth Evans
12 booksLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Gareth Evans AC QC was a Cabinet minister throughout the Hawke–Keating governments, including as foreign minister from 1988 to 1996. In his 21-year parliamentary career, he served as both leader of the government in the Senate and deputy leader of the Opposition. After leaving politics, he was president of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group from 2000 to 2009, and chancellor of the Australian National University from 2010 to 2019, where he is now Distinguished Honorary Professor.
Gareth Evans AC QC was a Cabinet minister throughout the Hawke–Keating governments, including as foreign minister from 1988 to 1996. In his 21-year parliamentary career, he served as both leader of the government in the Senate and deputy leader of the Opposition. After leaving politics, he was president of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group from 2000 to 2009, and chancellor of the Australian National University from 2010 to 2019, where he is now Distinguished Honorary Professor.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 8, 2011
Gareth Evans makes a gallant and sometimes successful effort in trying to convince his readers that mass atrocities, genocide or ethnic cleansing can be stopped by intervention into and against the countries where they are happening or about to happen. While I disagree with many of his conclusions there is no question that he is sincere in thinking that crimes against humanity can be stopped or kept from starting and his commitment to bringing the story to the world must be applauded. He has long experience: foreign minister of Australia, high level UN official, CEO of the International Crisis Group. Evans thinks the nations of the world can act in concert when faced with mass slaughter and that they have already created the framework to do so, lacking only the political will and ability to see beyond their own narrow interests.
His--and everyone’s--example is the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the unfortunate signature event in the history of humanitarian crises since the end of World War II. Every nation and international body that didn’t intervene had their reasons although none of the reasons stand up against the fact of the massacre of 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu men, women and children during a three month rampage of blood lust. The United Nations had international troops already on the scene—and they were reporting to Kofi Annan, later Secretary General, at that time in charge of peacekeeping operations. The United States abdicated its role at the world’s sole superpower—the memory of the disastrous mission to Somalia was too fresh in the minds of Bill Clinton and his advisors. Belgium, the former colonial power, turned its back on Rwanda.
Evans’s premise is that such horrors can be halted before they start by a combination of political, legal, economic and diplomatic pressure and that military intervention would only be necessary if they fail. It involves international action before the killing starts in order to minimize horrors of mass atrocity and to keep military incursion as a last and rarely used resort. Again Rwanda is the example; only the ferocity and efficiency of the killing took anyone by surprise.
The difficulties in establishing a true responsibility to protect citizens of a country not one’s own are significant—I would argue they are overwhelming—and Evans doesn’t try to diminish them. The first issue is state sovereignty. Evans thinks a system of limited sovereignty would be acceptable in the case of mass atrocity although there is little to support this idea, particularly when sovereignty and independence are among the only attributes that a state engaged in ethnic cleansing has. He thinks that the political leadership of countries in a position to intervene will do so even though they have refused in almost every case. Charges of neo-colonialism and neo-imperialism carry a great deal of weight when made by former colonies in Africa and Asia and have been effective in delaying initiatives particularly by their former colonial masters.
Evans writes well—he can even make the history of changes in UN resolutions sound interesting (or at least not dull)—and makes his arguments with every bit of moral and political persuasion he can muster which is quite a lot. But I disagree that the world has changed fundamentally in the past 25 years, that political leaders with myriad constituencies have become more altruistic and that we have decided to become our brother’s keeper.
Many of the principals of the responsibility to protect (R2P in jargon) seem derived from the Roman philosophical doctrine of jus ad bellum or just war. A key part of Catholic social teachings for centuries, the idea of just war has been accepted by most states and is ignored by just as many when it comes time to apply it.
This is an impassioned and well-presented book that ultimately fails to convince.
His--and everyone’s--example is the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the unfortunate signature event in the history of humanitarian crises since the end of World War II. Every nation and international body that didn’t intervene had their reasons although none of the reasons stand up against the fact of the massacre of 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu men, women and children during a three month rampage of blood lust. The United Nations had international troops already on the scene—and they were reporting to Kofi Annan, later Secretary General, at that time in charge of peacekeeping operations. The United States abdicated its role at the world’s sole superpower—the memory of the disastrous mission to Somalia was too fresh in the minds of Bill Clinton and his advisors. Belgium, the former colonial power, turned its back on Rwanda.
Evans’s premise is that such horrors can be halted before they start by a combination of political, legal, economic and diplomatic pressure and that military intervention would only be necessary if they fail. It involves international action before the killing starts in order to minimize horrors of mass atrocity and to keep military incursion as a last and rarely used resort. Again Rwanda is the example; only the ferocity and efficiency of the killing took anyone by surprise.
The difficulties in establishing a true responsibility to protect citizens of a country not one’s own are significant—I would argue they are overwhelming—and Evans doesn’t try to diminish them. The first issue is state sovereignty. Evans thinks a system of limited sovereignty would be acceptable in the case of mass atrocity although there is little to support this idea, particularly when sovereignty and independence are among the only attributes that a state engaged in ethnic cleansing has. He thinks that the political leadership of countries in a position to intervene will do so even though they have refused in almost every case. Charges of neo-colonialism and neo-imperialism carry a great deal of weight when made by former colonies in Africa and Asia and have been effective in delaying initiatives particularly by their former colonial masters.
Evans writes well—he can even make the history of changes in UN resolutions sound interesting (or at least not dull)—and makes his arguments with every bit of moral and political persuasion he can muster which is quite a lot. But I disagree that the world has changed fundamentally in the past 25 years, that political leaders with myriad constituencies have become more altruistic and that we have decided to become our brother’s keeper.
Many of the principals of the responsibility to protect (R2P in jargon) seem derived from the Roman philosophical doctrine of jus ad bellum or just war. A key part of Catholic social teachings for centuries, the idea of just war has been accepted by most states and is ignored by just as many when it comes time to apply it.
This is an impassioned and well-presented book that ultimately fails to convince.
July 18, 2012
I read this book mainly because recent events in Libya and Syria have made the questions addressed by it more prominent.
Evans makes his case very carefully and mostly convincingly. However, the problem I have with the book is one he can't quite tackle which is the issue of accountability. Ultimately despite the various protocols and definitions he uses, the problem remains of what to do if an "intervention" is illegal under the UN Charter? His solution - a sort of state confession as you might get in a normal legal system for a standard crime - doesn't quite work because whereas in a normal system a confession may bring some reward it also brings punishment, while in international relations that would not happen. And if there is no accountability you are in the road back to an anarchic international system.
The one thing you can say for Evans is that he openly acknowledges that his doctrine isn't perfect and that he is not proposing some completely rules-based system because the most powerful countries could never be subject to the more severe of the options under R2P. Evans I think has no problem with this because his view is that some action is better than nothing and worthwhile. Although I personally have some sympathy with this realist view, that's easy to say if you are someone who lives in one of the world's most powerful countries. The real problem is that it encourages other people to treat rules with no respect, and ultimately, even powerful countries have an interest in a rules-based system to a point, because it does make life a lot easier. I felt it was this point that Evans doesn't quite do justice.
Evans makes his case very carefully and mostly convincingly. However, the problem I have with the book is one he can't quite tackle which is the issue of accountability. Ultimately despite the various protocols and definitions he uses, the problem remains of what to do if an "intervention" is illegal under the UN Charter? His solution - a sort of state confession as you might get in a normal legal system for a standard crime - doesn't quite work because whereas in a normal system a confession may bring some reward it also brings punishment, while in international relations that would not happen. And if there is no accountability you are in the road back to an anarchic international system.
The one thing you can say for Evans is that he openly acknowledges that his doctrine isn't perfect and that he is not proposing some completely rules-based system because the most powerful countries could never be subject to the more severe of the options under R2P. Evans I think has no problem with this because his view is that some action is better than nothing and worthwhile. Although I personally have some sympathy with this realist view, that's easy to say if you are someone who lives in one of the world's most powerful countries. The real problem is that it encourages other people to treat rules with no respect, and ultimately, even powerful countries have an interest in a rules-based system to a point, because it does make life a lot easier. I felt it was this point that Evans doesn't quite do justice.
January 22, 2013
One of the most important books to come out in IR in the last few years; a seminal theory that, if ever executed, will lead toward a global responsibility to people, for people, by people: people, in other words, become the independent variable, and not the manipulative one that all too frequently occurs.
July 25, 2011
Read my review of this book in the Africa section of this week's Mail & Guardian. OK..here's a preview - I thought it was a good read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews