The United Nations and the responsibility to protect

Abstract

In the 2005 United Nations World Summit, the international community embraced the principle of the Responsibility to Protect. This newly emerging principle is the result of years of sporadic use of force, authorized and also unauthorized by the Security Council. This thesis examines three important instances in which the international community has used force, on the premise of protecting or restoring international peace and security. Firstly, it deals with NATO's intervention in the Kosovo War by examining the very legitimacy of the intervention. Secondly, it deliberates on the United States' war on Iraq, which was based on article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations on the principle of Self Defence. Thirdly, it examines the recent events of the Arab Spring through the conflict which had arised in Libya, along with the first implementation of the Responsibility to Protect principle. This thesis also examines the United Nations' Security Council and its authorization to use force. Finally, it also gives an overview as to the current events in Syria, while evaluating the notion of the Responsibility to Protect, its shortcomings, legal implications and its outcomes. Finally, the objective of this thesis is to deliberate on the subject of this new emerging principle of R2P by giving an overview of the history of the core legal system of the Security Council and its use of force, along with the detailed examination of the three vital case studies which will lead to a conclusion on the current situation the Security Council and the international community find itself in.