From Peacekeeping to Responsibility to Protect: Unpacking the Genealogy and History of the RtoP Doctrine in the International Humanitarian System

While the emergence and popularity of the responsibility to protect (RtoP) doctrine as a lexicon in international humanitarian system and literature have gained traction within the last decade, humanitarian intervention have however metamorphosed through a checkered history. This chapter examines the emergence and development of the RtoP by interrogating the genealogy and history of the doctrine that is hinged on the notion of a ‘never again’ approach to curtailing mass atrocities in the world. There is no gainsaying the fact that the continent of Africa have had a two-pronged impact on the RtoP. First, Africa was the epicentre of the ideological and operational shift from peacekeeping to RtoP; second, the continent have provided a litmus test for the implementation of the doctrine as evident by the backlash that followed NATO’S overreach in Libya in 2011. A plethora of inter-state and intra-state wars in Africa between the period of the end of the Cold War to the post-911 era have necessitated the deployment of over thirty peacekeeping missions on the continent by the United Nations (UN). However, the failure of UN peacekeeping missions to prevent mass atrocities such as the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the subsequent 1995 Srebrenica massacre birthed an ideological and operational shift from peacekeeping to a responsibility to protect that is geared towards ensuring a concerted global effort at acting to preventing mass atrocities. By using Africa as a prism, this study presents an in-depth analyses of the RtoP doctrine as an international statute by tracing the origin of peacekeeping and the history of its metamorphosis into the R2P doctrine. It further examines the norms of RtoP that breaks with the idea of peacekeeping. Lastly, this chapter interrogates the debates on the subject matter of the RtoP and makes a prognosis on the new directions—responsibility while protecting (RwP)—to which the doctrine may take in light of criticisms that followed its 2011 implementation Libya.