ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the extent to which the recognition of a moral demand for protection, founded in the idea of a collective harm to humanity, can in fact influence states to take action on behalf of others. Through this more critical engagement on the relationship between humanity and R2P, the chapter highlights the significant contestation that still exists, in terms of how the moral demands founded in the R2P compete with the everyday constraints of international politics. The chapter analyses the key moral obligations created by the concept of humanity, and assess how these obligations have helped to inform and construct the central motivational qualities of the R2P. The chapter then concludes by highlighting the need to more critically engage with the normative tensions at play in the R2P concept, thus opening up space for a significant reassessment of how we qualify the ability of new humanitarian concepts such as the R2P to reflect moral progress and change.
