Using International Norms to Understand the Responsibility to Protect and Humanitarian Intervention: Case studies from Kenya and Libya

Abstract

The norm Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) has gained greater awareness and attention in the field of international relations due to humanitarian interventions, human rights violations, massive genocide and ethnic cleansing. The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty coined the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect and it was further strengthened by the world summit in 2005. At present, Responsibility to Protect has explored the ways in which transforming the negatively perceived concept of right to intervene into a responsibility to react. The main objective of this study is to examine whether the nature of humanitarian intervention is replaced by the concept of responsibility to protect and whether the fulfillment of the three pillars of responsibility to protect functions properly. Furthermore the main objective was classified into several objectives examining the involvement of United Nations in responsibility to protect norm and the practice of responsibility to protect in contemporary world order. The study has been primarily conducted using secondary data and the study is a qualitative data analysis. Secondary data has been collected through books, journal articles, reports and academic publications. Two hypotheses have been constructed to examine the main purpose of the study; whether responsibility to protect norm is indirectly enhancing humanitarian intervention and whether the three pillars of responsibility to protect are fulfilled in contemporary world. Kenya and Libya have been selected as the case studies of the study. The findings of the study stipulates that humanitarian intervention has not been replaced by the establishment of responsibility to protect norm, but it functions under the limits of responsibility to protect due to international community assumes humanitarian intervention as a moral duty as long as it has no legal norm. Moreover, according to Kenya case the conflict situation was controlled through the second pillar in which the international community has the responsibility to assist the states in meeting the responsibility. The case of Libya has attracted severe criticisms in defining the RtoP. The involvement of United Nations on RtoP in contemporary world has also attracted successes and failures while practices of RtoP should be more transparent.