ABSTRACT
The history of the concept of "responsibility to protect" sounds almost like a fairy tale. The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty developed this concept in its 2001 report The Responsibility to Protect. This chapter seeks to clarify the status of the law and identifies its possible future directions. It argues that the concept of responsibility to protect should be understood partly as a political catchword that gained quick acceptance because it could be interpreted by different actors in different ways, and partly as "old wine in new bottles." The most comprehensive treatment of the concept was offered by the Commission on State Sovereignty and Intervention. The commission essentially developed the concept of responsibility to protect to solve the legal and policy dilemmas of humanitarian interventions. The chapter concludes that the concept currently encompasses a spectrum of different normative propositions that vary considerably in their status and degree of legal support.
