R2P: Liberalizing War

R2P: Liberalizing War

Proponents of the responsibility to protect (R2P) doctrine contend that it is necessary to reform the post-1945 United Nations noninterventionist regime in order to come to grips with armed conflicts that take place entirely inside independent countries but that produce grave human rights violations. As it stands, the U.N. regime is fundamentally restrictive, resting on a doctrine of nonintervention as set out in Article 2 of the U.N. Charter. Armed force can lawfully be employed only for two basic purposes: national defense and international peace and security. Those two elements of the U.N. justification of lawfully going to war, known by the Latin term "jus ad bellum," are enshrined in Article 51 and Chapter 7 of the Charter. They undergird and reinforce the U.N. political regime of equal sovereignty, territorial integrity and nonintervention as set out in Article 2.

That noninterventionist regime should be seen in the historical context from which it emerged: the end of World War II. That war was waged by the allies against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, whose foremost war crimes were acts of aggression, armed intervention, military occupation and political control of various European and Asian countries. Indeed, the first crime enumerated at Nuremberg was the crime of aggression. Surviving leaders of Nazi Germany were accused of military conquest and the occupation of numerous countries of Western, Northern and Eastern Europe. The Tokyo war crimes tribunal leveled the same charges against leaders of Imperial Japan. That vital historical context provides the backdrop to the U.N. Charter and its central principles of nonintervention and a limited right of war.

The R2P doctrine seeks to reform that U.N. noninterventionist regime by expanding and liberalizing the jus ad bellum to include civil wars and other conflicts internal to countries that produce grave human rights violations but have no damaging international consequences. In the language of the "Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty":

Keep reading for free!

Get instant access to the rest of this article by submitting your email address below. You'll also get access to three articles of your choice each month and our free newsletter:

Or, Subscribe now to get full access.

Already a subscriber? Log in here .

What you’ll get with an All-Access subscription to World Politics Review:

A WPR subscription is like no other resource — it’s like having a personal curator and expert analyst of global affairs news. Subscribe now, and you’ll get:

  • Immediate and instant access to the full searchable library of tens of thousands of articles.
  • Daily articles with original analysis, written by leading topic experts, delivered to you every weekday.
  • Regular in-depth articles with deep dives into important issues and countries.
  • The Daily Review email, with our take on the day’s most important news, the latest WPR analysis, what’s on our radar, and more.
  • The Weekly Review email, with quick summaries of the week’s most important coverage, and what’s to come.
  • Completely ad-free reading.

And all of this is available to you when you subscribe today.

More World Politics Review