The Responsibility to Protect

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. At least
until the horrifying events of 11 September 2001 brought to center stage the international
response to terrorism, the issue of intervention for human protection purposes has been
seen as one of the most controversial and difficult of all international relations questions.
With the end of the Cold War, it became a live issue as never before. Many calls for
intervention have been made over the last decade – some of them answered and some of
them ignored. But there continues to be disagreement as to whether, if there is a right
of intervention, how and when it should be exercised, and under whose authority.