A conceptual safari: Africa and R2P

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Authors

Spies, Yolanda Kemp
Dzimiri, Patrick

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Berghahn Books

Abstract

The Responsibility to Protect is a new human security paradigm that re-conceptualizes state sovereignty as a responsibility rather than a right. Its seminal endorsement by the 2005 World Summit has however not consolidated the intellectual parameters of the norm. Neither has it succeeded in galvanizing R2P’s doctrinal development; hence the January 2009 appeal by the UN secretary-general for the international community to operationalize R2P at the doctrinal level, in addition to at institutional and policy levels. R2P represents a critical stage in the debate on intervention for human protection purposes, but its key concepts require more exploration. Africa is a uniquely placed stakeholder in R2P on account of its disproportionate share of humanitarian crises and because Africans have played key roles in conceptualizing the norm. The continent should therefore not just off er an arena for, but indeed take the lead in, the conceptual journey that R2P’s doctrinal development requires.

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Keywords

Intervention, Human security, Responsibility to protect

Sustainable Development Goals

Citation

Spies, Y & Dzimiri, P 2011, 'A conceptual safari Africa and R2P', Regions and Cohesion, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 32-53.