This book explores the relationship between the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the International Criminal Court (ICC), challenging the assumption that they are always mutually reinforcing or complementary, and examining instead the many tensions which arise between the immediate imperative of saving lives, and the more long-term prospect of punishing perpetrators and preventing future conflicts through deterrence. Around the world, audiences in the mid-1990s watched the mass atrocities unfolding in Rwanda and Srebrenica in horror and disbelief. Emerging from these disasters came an international commitment to safeguard and protect vulnerable communities, as laid out in the R2P principle, and an international responsibility to punish perpetrators, with the establishment of the ICC. The book provides context-independent proposals for resolving contradictions between the two principles, suggesting that focusing on timing and sequencing in invoking international R2P and ICC actions could facilitate the easing of tensions. Drawing on examples from Uganda, Kenya, and Darfur, the book applies International Relations concepts and theories in order to deepen our understanding of international responses to mass atrocities. Ultimately the book concludes that a 'Protection First, Justice Later' sequence approach is necessary for managing the tension and facilitating more effective and consistent international responses. This book makes an important contribution to discussions and debates surrounding international responses to genocide and mass atrocities. It will be of special interest to scholars, students and policymakers in International Relations, Global Governance, African Studies, International Development, Human Rights and International Criminal Law.

What can be done to warn about and organize political action to prevent genocide and mass atrocities? The international contributors to this volume are either experts or practitioners, often both, who have contributed in substantial ways to analyzing high risk situations, recommending preventive policies and actions, and in several instances helping to organize remedial actions. Whereas current literature on the prevention of genocide is theoretically well grounded, this book explores what can be done, and has been done, in real-world situations. Recommendations and actions are rooted in a generation of experience, based on solid historical, comparative, and empirical research and with a grounding in quantitative methods. This volume examines historical cases to understand the general causes and processes of mass violence and genocide, and engages with ongoing genocidal crises including Darfur and Syria, as well as other forms of related violence such as terrorism and civil conflict. It will be key reading for all students and scholars of genocide, war and conflict studies, human security and security studies in general.

What are the causes of genocide and mass atrocities? How can we prevent these atrocities or, when that is no longer possible, intervene to stop them? What are the impediments to timely and robust action? In what ways do political factors shape the nature, and results, of international responses? The authors of Responding to Genocide explore these questions, examining the many challenges involved in forging effective international policies to combat genocidal violence.

This book brings together a diverse range of international voices from academia, policymaking and civil society to address the failure to connect historical dialogue with atrocity prevention discourse and provide insight into how conflict histories and historical memory act as dynamic forces, actively facilitating or deterring current and future conflict. Established on a variety of international case studies combining theoretical and practical points of view, the book envisions an integrated understanding of how historical dialogue can inform policy, education, and the practice of atrocity prevention. In doing so, it provides a vital basis for the development of preventive policies sensitive to the importance of conflict histories and for further academic study on the topic. It will be of interest to all scholars and students of history, psychology, peace studies, international relations and political science.

The ongoing crisis in Darfur, Sudan has stimulated a huge amount of political and academic interest across the world. The crisis has been both reflective and constitutive of key areas of contestation and change within contemporary international society. This book examines the crisis in Darfur as a case study of some of the wider debates currently taking place within International Relations theory. Using the conceptual framework developed by English School theorists, specifically their concept of international society and the related idea of "good international citizenship", this book examines a wide range of issues: foreign policy analysis, theories of norm diffusion, international organizations, peace operations, international criminal justice and war law, the causes and nature of contemporary warfare, and the international relations of Africa. Making an important contribution to the debate about the meaning and limits of international society, this book will be of interest to students and scholars international relations theory, international security, foreign policy, international organizations, human rights, African politics, genocide studies and international law.

Mass atrocities were once a common occurrence in East Asia. Yet, over the past three decades, mass atrocities have declined in East Asia to the point of near elimination. This book explains how and why.

The responsibility to protect (R2P) is at a crossroads, the latest in a journey that is only ten years old. This book present debates on the prevention of mass atrocities to R2P’s normative prospects. The book addresses key questions as a way to inform and drive on-going conversations about R2P. Moving beyond well-rehearsed debates about the tensions and meanings around sovereignty in R2P practice, the book focuses on advancing the credibility of the preventive dimensions of R2P, whilst simultaneously examining the extent of R2P’s current value-added in state decision making—especially for the 2011 actions in Libya and Côte d’Ivoire. Questions addressed include: Did the R2P framework of the 2005 World Summit Declaration intend to mould sovereignty, and if so how? Can R2P break or revert cycles of violence? How can one determine the appropriate duration and timing of the preventive and protective phases of R2P? Who/what should be the targets of preventive action, and how does this have an impact on R2P diplomacy? Under which conditions are particular policy tools likely to be effective? Which state and regional actors are best suited to using these tools? What are the barriers to successful preventive action—how can they be overcome? What capacities need to be built (at the national, regional, and international levels) in order to operationalize R2P’s preventive agenda? Examining a wide range of countries, this work will be essential reading for students and scholars of international human rights, international organizations, peacekeeping and conflict resolution.

This book ambitiously weaves together history and politics to explain all of the major situations where mass atrocities have occurred, or been prevented, over the 15 years since the 'Responsibility to Protect' (R2P) was adopted at the 2005 UN World Summit. The author provides a history of human rights, mass atrocities and the principle of the R2P from the perspective of someone whose day job has been to work with the UN Security Council, various governments and civil society to help ensure the international community does not fail those who face the threat of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity today. It examines the implementation of the controversial principle of R2P since 2011 and how we end the politics of impunity, indifference and inaction once and for all. Using case studies from Iraq, Syria, Myanmar and Libya, the book offers a unique perspective regarding how we make 'never again' a living principle, rather than a cliché and how we end the politics of impunity, indifference and inaction once and for all. It will be of especial interest to scholars, students and policymakers working in the fields of international politics or concerned about human rights, atrocities, the United Nations and international justice in the world today.

This book seeks to reimagine why and how to confront mass atrocities in world politics. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s conception of evil, it interprets and understands mass atrocities as ‘evil’ in an ‘Arendtian’ sense, that is, as crimes against human plurality and, thus, crimes against humanity itself. This understanding of mass atrocities paves the way for reframing responses to mass atrocities as attempts to confront evil. In doing so, the book focuses on military intervention under the banner of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and judicial intervention by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and reframes them as tools to protect human plurality from evil. Furthermore, the book looks at the place and the role of R2P and the ICC in the changing landscape of world order. It argues that the protection of humanity from evil can serve as a legitimate Grundnorm (basic norm) around which a global constitutional order in an inherently pluralistic world can be constructed.