Beyond ‘Saving Strangers’: Revisiting R2P as an Accountability Mechanism

Abstract Nearly two decades after its formal endorsement by the international community, the Responsibility to Protect is stuck in a quagmire reminiscent of the contentious politics that both preceded and precipitated it. A once ambitious effort to transform notions of responsibility and practices of accountability regarding civilian protection and atrocity prevention, R2P has stagnated to such a degree that some have dismissed it as a dead letter. This research diagnoses the primary cause of that stagnation while also proposing a way forward for resuscitating R2P’s normative aims, via a return to R2P’s origins as an accountability mechanism for the provision of human rights and security.