The International Community and Atrocity Crimes

Abstract Arising from the horrors of Rwanda and Srebrenica, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) holds that sovereign states have a responsibility to protect their own populations from atrocity crimes, that the international community should encourage and assist individual states to fulfil their responsibility, and that when states are “manifestly failing” to protect their populations, the international community should respond in a “timely and decisive” fashion. This chapter examines the emergence and developments of R2P. It shows that R2P confers responsibilities upon specific actors, but that the principle is grounded in international politics. It is best thought of, therefore, as a “responsibility to try.” The principle’s mixed record in practice should not obscure the fact that the international community increasingly recognizes a collective responsibility to protect populations within other states. The chapter also shows that the allocation of responsibility is complicated by the emergence of non-state armed groups both as perpetrators and protectors.