ABSTRACT
This chapter connects the books’ conceptual issues to the practical politics of the responsibility to protect. It introduces the elements of the responsibility to protect, reviewing the origins of that phrase in the 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Four main components of the wider idea of the ‘responsibility to protect’ are distilled. First, the idea of responsible sovereignty stresses the protection obligations of the ‘host’ or ‘target’ state – the state in which there are people who need or deserve protection. Second, the idea of contingent sovereignty implies, perhaps controversially, that the rights of autonomy and non-intervention typically enjoyed by national governments ought not to be considered absolute. Third, the idea of responsible intervention places limits on the conditions under which outside actors can legitimately take action across sovereign borders and sets out the parameters distinguishing justifiable and well-ordered initiatives from questionable ones. Finally, the idea of sustained assistance links the question of crisis response to the question of prevention through non-coercive investments in capacity-building and, perhaps, aid and development initiatives. The chapter concludes by examining the complex linkages between these elements.
