ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on five issues: the displacement of ‘humanitarian intervention’, atrocity prevention, unsatisfactory implementation, the main Responsibility to Protect (R2P) actors and continuing scepticism about R2P. Anniversaries are occasions to take stock: reflect on progress, celebrate successes, acknowledge setbacks and outline a vision and roadmap for doing better. Politically, the visceral hostility of a large number of former colonised countries to ‘humanitarian intervention’ is explained by the historical baggage of rapacious exploitation and cynical hypocrisy. R2P emerged against the backdrop of a growing awareness among peoples and policymakers of mass atrocities in various parts of the world. In addition to political controversy on implementation, R2P remains contested among scholars. R2P is an improvement on humanitarian intervention on almost all dimensions that most of the international community found objectionable. Consequently, military intervention under R2P has much better prospects of a convergence of legality and legitimacy in the use of force.
