ABSTRACT
This chapter explains why the civilian protection agenda is particularly relevant and important for Africa and why Responsibility to Protect might be said to be an African norm export to the rest of the world. The tragedy of the Rwanda genocide in 1994 and the cruel paradox of the Serbian massacre of Bosnian civilians sheltering in UN-protected safe areas in Srebrenica in 1995 were powerful stimuli to the normative shift from neutral, combat-averse and passive peacekeeping to the mandate to protect civilians under imminent threat. Created from the ashes of the Second World War, with the allies determined to prevent a repeat of Adolf Hitler’s horrors, the United Nations for most of its existence has focused far more on external aggression than internal mass killings. Humanitarian, peacekeeping, electioneering and enforcement measures by the UN face distinctive difficulties when they have to be undertaken with regard to civil rather than international wars.
