Conclusion: The Future of Humanitarian Intervention?

Abstract

This book is about the responsibility to protect but it is also about humanitarian intervention. The idea that R2P can, or should, distance itself from the issue of humanitarian intervention is, I contend, illogical. The very first sentence of the 2001 report The Responsibility to Protect reads: This report is about the so-called ‘right of humanitarian intervention’: the question of when, if ever, it is appropriate for states to take coercive — and in particular military — action against another state for the purpose of protecting people at risk in that other state. (ICISS, 2001a, p. VII)