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International responses / Book

The responsibility to protect: from an ethical principle to an effective policy

23/11/2007 By Juan Garrigues

At first sight it may seem misguided to include a chapter on the responsibility to protect in a publication from a non-governmental organisation (NGO) entitled The Reality of Aid.

In the end, the responsibility to protect is a question of high state politics at the service of a humanitarian cause; diplomats and officials in Western capitals taking measured and consensual decisions in which they strive to find a balance between State interests and international solidarity.

In humanitarian aid and development, NGOs strive daily to ensure that impartiality remains one of the core principles of their work on the ground. Why therefore this curious inclusion? To begin with, very few really comprehend the responsibility to protect. Is it an idealistic principle designed to aid all the unprotected communities of the world? Is it a justification for military intervention as a political objective? Or is it simply another theory remote from all practical application created by well-intended academics?

In fact, the responsibility to protect represents a significant leap from previous debates, especially since the beginning of the 1990s, around the protection of groups threatened by genocide or violations of their human rights.

The responsibility to protect works for the protection of civilians not to be completely subjected to political interests or to fall into oblivion due to divisions or lack of political commitments within the international community through the elaboration of a series of guidelines.

As an acknowledged and approved principle by the member states of the United Nations (UN), the success or failure, or moreover, the mere existence of the responsibility to protect, will substantially define the scale and nature of the future work of humanitarian aid.

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Keywords

Canada Central Africa Civil Military Relations EU Foreign Policy European Union Human security Peacekeeping Responsibility to protect Spain Sudan UN

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Bio author: Juan Garrigues

Juan Garrigues holds a BA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and an MA in International Studies from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.