This edited volume critically examines the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as a guiding norm in international politics. After NATOs intervention in Libya, against the backdrop of civil wars in Syria and Yemen, and because of the cynical support for R2P by states such as Saudi Arabia, this norm is the subject of heavy criticism. It seems that the R2P is just political rhetoric, an instrument exploited by the powerful states. Hence, the R2P is being challenged. At the same time, however, institutional settings, normative discourses and contestation practices are making it more robust. New understandings of responsibility and the politics of protection are creating new normative spaces, patterns of legitimacy, and norm entrepreneurs, thereby reinforcing the R2P.
This books goals are to discuss the R2Ps roots, institutional framework, and evolution; to reveal its shortcomings and pitfalls; and to explore how it is exploited by certain states. Further, it elaborates on the R2Ps strength as a norm. Accordingly, the contributions presented here discuss various ways in which the R2P is being challengedor confirmed, or bothat once. As the authors demonstrate, these developments concern not only diplomatic communication and political practices within international institutions, but also to normative discourses.
Furthermore, the book includes chapters that reevaluate the R2P from a normative standpoint, e.g. by proposing cosmopolitan standards as a guide for states external behavior. Other contributors reassess the historical evidence from U.N. negotiations on the R2P principle, and the productive or restrictive role of institutions. Discussing new issues relating to the R2P such as global and regional power shifts or foreign policy, as well as the phenomenon of authoritarian interventionism under the R2P umbrella, this book will appeal to all IR scholars and students interested in humanitarianism, norms, and power. By analyzing the status quo of the R2P, it enriches and broadens the debate on what the R2P currently is, and what it ought to be.
Alexander Reichwein is Lecturer in International Relations at the Department of Political Science at the Justus-Liebig-University Giessen. He is also a Co-Speaker of the Norms and Changes in Global Politics research section at the Giessen Graduate Centre for Social Sciences, Business, Economics and Law (GGS).
Mischa Hansel is head of the International Cybersecurity (ICS) research group at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) at the University of Hamburg. He is also a Co-Speaker of theNorms and Changes in Global Politics research section at the Giessen Graduate Centre for Social Sciences, Business, Economics and Law (GGS).
Chapter 1. Introduction: The Responsibility to Protect challenged or confirmed? (Mischa Hansel).- Part I. R2P Institutions, Contestation, Discourse Spaces.- Chapter 2. The international implementation of R2P: norm contestation and its consequences (Gregor Hofmann),- Chapter 3. Forums Do Matter: Examining the Norm Dynamics of the Responsibility to Protect (Anne Peltner).- Chapter 4. R2P: Opening Discursive Spaces for Politics of Protection (Sassan Gholiagha).- Chapter 5. Protection of Basic Human Rights by Exercising Graded Responsibilities Linking the Responsibility to Protect with the Attribution of Extraterritorial Duties (Daniel Peters).- Part II. R2P in Practice.- Chapter 6. R2P and Norm Localization: Chinas Influence on the Development of R2P (Johanna Polle).- Chapter 7. Punishing or preventing? The responsibility to protect and the wars in South Sudan (Ole Frahm).- Chapter 8. Rethinking Turkeys Approach to R2P: Turkish Foreign Policy towards the Syrian Civil War 2011-2017 (Volkan eyane).- Part III. R2P Promises and Pitfalls.- Chapter 9. The Waning of post-Cold War Western Preponderance in International Norm Politics. Its Impact on the International Protection of People from Domestic Violence (Lothar Brock).- Chapter 10. A dangerous responsibility. Towards a new Authoritarian Interventionism? (Mischa Hansel).
