What Is The Responsibility To Protect Concept (R2P)?

Introduction
This essay will begin by arguing that the responsibility to protect concept (hereafter R2P) is political in nature, not legal. The is mainly due to the lack of legal liability for the main body responsible for carrying out the duties of R2P, the Security Council, if it fails in those duties. Furthermore, the Security Council is not subject judicial review of actions that it does take. Critics of the concept argue that it can be used as a legitimate justification for states with imperialist intentions, which would make R2P a significantly dangerous tool in international relations. However, in reality R2P’s significance is not that great. The power to authorise military intervention remains with the Security Council, which is
The principle that has emerged from the World Summit was rightly described by Thomas Weiss35, the director of research in the original ICISS report, as ‘R2P lite’36 because of how restricted the legal use of force is outside Security Council authorisation. This essay agrees with that description. The nature of the atrocities that the R2P concept is supposedly in existence to stop require military intervention because events such as genocide are violent, force driven events which must be countered with force. If use of force can only be authorised by the Security Council, which is only ‘prepared’ to act and can not be held to judicial review for inaction, then there is a danger that the concept will be ineffective if the Council decides not to authorise the use of force. The only options left for states would be diplomatic ones, leaving the concept significantly less able to counter atrocities than it’s creators would have hoped. It is therefore clear that R2P’s weak legal nature has had serious consequences on it’s significance as a concept that has the ability to prevent genocide and other war