Suchergebnisse

This book offers a novel and contemporary examination of the 'responsibility to protect' (R2P) doctrine from an international legal perspective and analyses how the doctrine was applied within the Libyan and Syrian conflicts as two recent and highly significant R2P cases. The book dissects each of R2P's three component pillars to examine their international legal underpinnings, drawing upon diverse legal frameworks - including the laws of the UN, laws of international organisations, human rights law, humanitarian law, criminal law, environmental law, and laws of State responsibility - to extract conclusions regarding existing and emerging host and third-State obligations to prevent and react to mass atrocity crimes. It uses this legal grounding to critically examine specific aspects of the Libyan and Syrian R2P cases, engaging with some of the more traditional debates surrounding R2P's application, most notably those that pertain to the use of force (or lack thereof), but also exploring some of the less-researched non-military methods that were or could have been employed by States and international organisations to uphold the doctrine. Such an analysis captures the diversity in the means and actors through which R2P can be implemented and allows for the extraction of more nuanced conclusions regarding the doctrine's strengths and limitations, gaps in enforceability, levels of State support, and future trajectory.

The 21 August 2013 chemical attack on Ghouta led to the mobilisation of the international community after long international paralysis towards the ongoing conflict in Syria. It is unclear, however, why or under what legal basis states chose to react to Syria's use of chemical weapons in exclusion to other mass atrocity crimes committed within the country. This article evaluates the legal underpinnings of President Obama's 'red line' on the use of chemical weapons in Syria in the context of R2P. It notes that while all states condemned the Ghouta attack and called for accountability in this regard, only a minority of states shared the United States' position that chemical weapons constituted a red line in their own right. Overall, it is maintained that the 'red line' phenomenon was case-specific to the Syrian conflict, reflecting geopolitical interests of world powers rather than signifying a new precedent for R2P's application.