Atrocity Crimes Framing the Responsibility to Protect

The principle of the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) has achieved, within a remarkably short span of time, a rhetorical presence in international politics and international law that has invited both praise and skepticism.’ In its simplest and most widely accepted formulation, R2P represents the responsibility of governments and the international community to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity—all of which are categories of significant crimes that should be designated as atrocity crimes, both for purposes of accuracy when describing the basket of relevant crimes and for simplicity as a means of communicating with the global populace. In this chapter I will examine what is meant by each of these categories of crimes and by the unifying term, atrocity crimes. An understanding of the legal basis for R2P must underpin efforts to activate the principles of R2P on the world stage. In reality, not all atrocity crimes, particularly some categories of crimes against humanity and war crimes, necessarily justify military intervention as the most extreme application of R2P. Drawing the line between atrocity crimes that would merit and those that would lack justification for military intervention when all else fails under R2P could become an extremely difficult task in world affairs.