In The Responsibility to Protect: The Promise of Stopping Mass Atrocities in Our Time, Jared Genser and Irwin Cotler provide a comprehensive overview on how this contemporary principle of international law has developed and analyze how best to apply it to current and future humanitarian crises. The "responsibility to protect" is a doctrine unanimously adopted by the UN World Summit in 2005, which says that all states have an obligation to protect their own citizens from mass atrocities, which includes genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. Its adoption and application has generated a passionate debate in law schools, professional organizations, media and within the U.N. system.
To present a full picture of where the doctrine now stands and where it could go in the future, editors Jared Genser and Irwin Cotler have assembled a global team of authors with diverse backgrounds and differing viewpoints, including Edward Luck, the UN Secretary-General's Special Advisor on the Responsibility to Protect. Genser and Cotler balance the pro-RtoP chapters with more skeptical arguments from agency staff and scholars with long experience in addressing mass atrocities. Framed by a Preface from Desmond Tutu and Vaclav Havel and a Conclusion from Gareth Evans, these in-depth and authoritative analyses move beyond theory to demonstrate how RtoP has worked on the ground and should work if applied to other crises. The global focus of this book, as well as its detailed application of the principle in case studies make it uniquely useful to staff at international organizations and NGOs considering use of the principle in a given circumstance, to scholars providing advice to governments, and to students seeking guidance on this still-expanding subject.
Industry Reviews
"In a recent Oxford University Press book -- The Responsibility to Protect: The Promise of Stopping Mass Atrocities in Our Time -- human rights lawyers Jared Genser and Irwin Cotler edit a volume of essays that range from endorsement to skeptical views of the doctrine. With an introduction by Desmond Tutu and the late Václav Havel, the assembled contributors have produced the best discussion on how best to apply R2P to current and future humanitarian
crises."
--Thor Halvorssen, Founder, Human Rights Foundation
Huffington Post, January 2012
"Including perspectives from a diverse group of experts, The Responsibility to Protect makes an important contribution to the growing scholarship about this new and evolving doctrine. At the same time, however, the case studies in the book illustrate the painful reality of the large gap between the world's stated commitment to halting mass atrocities and its ongoing practice. Ultimately, it recommends a series of practical steps that should be taken by the
international community to bring its promise to fruition."
- The Honourable Roméo A. Dallaire, Senator (Canada) and Lieutenant General (Ret.)
"The goalposts have moved in recent years as much more robust obligations are expected of states and intergovernmental organizations when vulnerable groups face humanitarian crises, be these man-made or natural. Nowhere is this more clearly manifested than in the evolving doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect, This rich and authoritative collection of essays provides a superb tour d'horizon of the subject, explaining the theoretical and political issues and
setting out the relevance of the concept to the great challenges of our times."
- William Schabas, professor of international law, Middlesex University, London
"The book is both informative and stimulating, as it pairs nuanced doctrinal analysis with captivating political and historical studies of RtoP's development and its influence on modern mass atrocities. Ultimately, anyone looking for exposure to this burgeoning principle of international law, the politics that underlie its developing norms, or a brief history of contemporary mass atrocities will find The Responsibility to Protect captivating." --Matthew B.
Simon, NYU School of Law Journal of International Law and Politics (Vol 45, Issue 3)
