Ar tarptautinės viešosios teisės doktrina "Pareiga ginti" yra įgijusi tarptautinės paprotinės teisės normos statusą? ; Whether the doctrine Responsability to Protect has gained the status of international customary law norm?

Abstract

The rise of human rights in 20th century brought the idea of minimal international standard to ensure and protect those rights. In 2001 the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty made a report which suggested the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect based on the state's duty to respect its own citizens' rights and the duty of international community to step in if a state commits mass scale human rights violations. This final paper focuses on answering the question whether R2P has gained the status of customary law. For this reason the first chapter analyzes what defines international customary law and how can it be applied in particular cases. The second part of the paper focuses on presenting the R2P doctrine and its elements. The third and fourth chapters analyze the legal justification of use of force and the most recant example of R2P application in Libya. The conclusions bring the answer to the hypothesis that R2P is not yet an international customary law. Although the status of being one could be very beneficial in order to avoid political dead-end in the United Nations Security Council actions. In addition to this, this paper argues that state's duty to protect its own people is already an international customary law, on the contrary international community, if needed to cope with failed states, still waits for the UNSC authorization. This leads to the conclusion that the second element of R2P (the actions of international community) is not an international customary law.