Reviewing the Responsibility to Protect: origins, implementation and controversies

Abstract

Ramesh Thakur is a distinguished scholar and an experienced practitioner. Reviewing the Responsibility to Protect, a collection of Thakur's key essays on R2P, with a new introduction and conclusion, draws on his academic expertise in the field of global governance and international security, and constitutes an insider's account of advocacy for norms associated with the nascent human protection regime. Thakur served on the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) and drafted key passages of the report that resulted from its deliberations and international consultations. The book encapsulates his thinking and paints a vivid picture of his perspective on the principle and on central issues of implementation. Taken together, the book conveys his sustained engagement with three central themes: protection responsibilities and their implementation; collective responses and international norms; and relations between the core and the periphery, between states of the global North and those of the global South.