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This essay conducts a Plausibility Probe Case Study focused on how the UN and the wider international community have approached the civil war in Ethiopia. Because the Ethiopian Government has been unable to protect its population, Ethiopia can be considered a typical case for the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). R2P was introduced in response to the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica and builds upon the idea of the international community having a responsibility to assist states to protect their populations. R2P’s normative status remains debated, however, due to criticism directed against R2P’s third pillar which prescribes the international community a responsibility to act when a state is unwilling or unable to protect its population. Therefore, scholars have started to analyse R2P’s status by the use of Finnemore & Sikkink’s Norm Life Cycle Theory, disagreeing about R2P’s normative strength and whether R2P will ever be able to enter the third stage of the Norm Life Cycle (NLC). This essay applies the same theory to the empirical findings from the Ethiopian case with the primary aim to contribute to the debate about R2P’s normative status. Findings show how R2P seems to be positioned at the second stage of the NLC. This does not necessarily mean that R2P should be considered a weak norm as the UN and the international community have indirectly complied with R2P when approaching the Ethiopian conflict. Yet, the fact that none of the relevant actors under study has mentioned R2P explicitly indicates how R2P still remains a controversial norm within international politics.

This thesis examines the international community's meager response – despite the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) – to the conflict in Tigray. Why was the response minimal, and what could be done to make R2P more efficacious in the future? The R2P framework describes the responsibilities to protect populations around the world against mass atrocity crimes, as stated in Article 5 of the Rome Statute. The study shows that R2P as a framework is flawed, and proposes the creation of an R2P ombudsman to monitor conflicts, focus the international community's attention and assist states that are struggling or failing to protect vulnerable people. The thesis draws upon a theory of political realism but also highlights the sometime significance of shared ethical norms and values.

År 2001 publicerade den Internationella Kommission för Intervention och Statssuveränitet (ICISS) en rapport om den så kallade doktrinen om skyldigheten att skydda (responsibility to protect, R2P). Enligt kommissionen innebär doktrinen att det internationella samfundet genom FN har en skyldighet att ingripa i situationer då människor utsätts för grova brott mot mänskliga rättigheter. Skyldigheten är subsidiär och infaller först då staten som har ansvar för att dessa människors mänskliga rättigheter respekteras misslyckas med att ingripa. Kommissionen menar att doktrinen på så sätt kan vara en lösning på de situationer då människor utsätts för grova brott inom en stats gränser där det internationella samfundet vanligtvis inte har tillåtelse att intervenera. Några år efter att rapporten publicerades antog FNs generalförsamling en resolution som innehöll ett antagande av doktrinen. Sedan dess har doktrinen diskuterats ihärdigt i samband med debatten om våldsanvändning inom ramen för humanitär intervention. Framtiden för doktrinen inom internationell rätt är inte självklar. Bland kritikerna finns såväl förespråkare som motståndare. Förespråkarna ser doktrinen som en lovande internationell rättskälla under utveckling, medan motståndarna ifrågasätter de legala grunderna som doktrinen sägs vila på. Den här uppsatsen undersöker det rättsliga förhållandet mellan våldsregleringen i internationell rätt och doktrinen i syfte att finna ett svar på frågan om doktrinen kan innebär att undantag från det generella våldsförbudet i situationer då grova brott mot mänskliga rättigheter äger rum. Argumenten som framförs är grundade i såväl juridik som moral., In 2001, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) published a report on the so called doctrine of the responsibility to protect (R2P). According to the ICISS, the R2P implies a subsidiary responsibility on the international community through the United Nations (UN) to protect populations from gross human rights violations if states responsible for those populations fails to protect them by themselves. The proposal of the ICISS is that in situations of mass atrocities, if necessary, the international community should be able to resort to the use of military force. The ICISS suggests that the R2P could be the solution to the seemingly unresolvable problem of gross human rights violations occurring within territorial borders without the international community being able to intervene. A few years later, the General Assembly of the United Nations (UNGA) adopted a resolution in which the R2P is acknowledged. Since then the R2P has remained in the spotlight in the debate on intervention for humanitarian protection purposes. The point of departure is that the future of the R2P is not given. There are both those in favour of the R2P as an emerging source of international law as well as those who are more hesitant and doubtful. To some, the doctrine is part of a more or less viable solution to bridge the gap between on the one hand the prohibition of the use of force and state sovereignty, and on the other the protection and realization of fundamental human rights. To others, the R2P is based on ‘legal nothingness’. The thesis examines the legal relationship between the use of force-regulation and the R2P for the purpose of finding an answer to the question if the R2P, as of today, has the ability to evoke an exception to the prohibition of use of force in events of gross human rights violations. The various arguments that this examination raises are both legally as well as strictly morally founded.

This thesis examines the relationship between the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle and international refugee law to analyse the responsibility of states, the UNHCR, and the international community to protect prima facie refugees fleeing mass atrocity crimes. It advances a framework of minimum protection for prima facie refugees and applies this framework to a contemporary context by examining national and international responses to the Syrian refugee crisis in Jordan. While the thesis argues that there is universal agreement on the need to protect people fleeing mass atrocity crimes, it finds an implementation gap in the provision of protection and asylum, and a resourcing gap between refugee needs and available resources to protect them.

The inability of the Security Council to consistently apply The Responsibility to Protect has drawn criticism towards the council, accusing it of a western bias. If true, this could prove a serious dent in the UN’s ambition to maintain international peace and security according to the seventh chapter of the UN charter. The aim of this study is to compare and analyze different conflicts in order to identify variables which could tell us something about a potential bias. Since the criticism has been voiced mainly by representatives of the “third world”, a postcolonial perspective will be used to analyze the results of the study along with postcolonial theories on state-building and a critical perspective on security. The results of the study show us that there is a significant difference in importance between the variables when an intervention is considered, and that the occurrence of war crimes and crimes against humanity is rarely considered enough for an intervention to be executed. The finalizing discussion concludes that there doesn’t appear to be any clear logic in the way which the Security Council applies The Responsibility to Protect, which could lead to serious legitimacy issues for the Security Council if left unsolved.

This Paper seeks to establish what duties are owed to an asylum-seeker by his or her host State under international law. The Paper explains how an individual can be recognised as a genuine refugee, as opposed to an asylum-seeker and what exactly this means under the relevant international law instruments. It analyses what responsibilities and duties are owed to refugees by their host State and when these can be revoked. Focusing on the large influx of displaced people from Syria who have come into Europe recently, the Paper concludes that the majority of Syrians would not meet the requirements for recognition as a genuine refugee. However, while the instruments do not place binding duties on States to offer protection to displaced persons, a number – for example, Geneva Convention IV and Additional Protocol I, Human Rights instruments and the responsibility to protect – do place discretionary duties. In the past, the EU – mainly through the Courts – has shown a willingness to be bound by these discretionary duties. Whether this will continue in regards to the Syrian asylum-seekers remains unclear at time of writing. The Paper canvases a number of alternative ways for Europe to approach the Refugee Crisis.

Denna undersökning studerar vilka säkerhetsperspektiv som speglas i idén Skyldigheten att Skydda genom att utforska ett par nyckeldokument: ICISS rapport från 2001 samt FN:s summitdokument från 2005. Med hjälp av en idé- och ideologianalys svarar undersökningen på vilket av det mänskliga, det politiska, det militära samt ett postkolonialt säkerhetsperspektiv som framförallt speglas i Skyldigheten att Skydda. Detta görs huvudsakligen utifrån fyra frågor: vad är det som ska skyddas? Varför ska det skyddas? Vad ska det skyddas från? Samt med vilka medel ska objektet skyddas? Undersökningen finner att alla dessa perspektiv har en del i Skyldigheten att Skydda men att deras roll och hur centrala de är kraftigt skiljer sig åt.

År 2005 enades FN’s medlemsländer om ett initiativ vid namn Responsibility to protect. Initiativet baserades på tanken att en stats suveränitet inte är ett privilegium utan ett ansvar och syftade till att förhindra brott mot civilbefolkningar. Brott i form av folkmord, krigsbrott, brott mot mänskligheten och etnisk rensning.Den 17 mars 2011 röstade FN’s säkerhetsråd igenom resolution 1973. Det innebar att en internationell koalition ledda av NATO upprättade en no fly zone över Libyen i syfte att skydda civilbefolkningen från Ghadaffiregimens övergrepp. Detta var första gången som FN och det internationella samfundet motiverat en militär intervention utifrån just Responsibility to protect. Det svenska bidraget till den internationella styrkan bestod av upp till åtta stycken JAS 39 Gripen med personal som endast fick bekämpa luft hot, alltså inte mål på marken. År 2002 när den svenska riksdagen för första gången beslutade att skicka en svensk militär styrka till Afghanistan förelåg inga liknande restriktioner gällande nyttjandet av vapen från de svenska soldaterna.Uppsatsen skall söka svar på huruvida den svenska insatsen i Afghanistan motiverades med samma värderingar som den i Libyen. Detta i syfte att kartlägga och problematisera Responsibility to protects betydelse för det svenska deltagandet i militära insatser. Det kommer genomföras via en kvalitativ, idékritiskt klassificerande textanalys av de riksdagsdebatter som förelåg insatserna med fokus på om värderingar från Responsibility to protect kan spåras i argumentationen.Resultatet är inte helt entydigt men argument med tydlig anknytning till Responsibility to protect påträffas i samtliga debatter som undersökts. Det går även att utröna en förändring i hur riksdagsledamöterna argumenterar för ett svenskt deltagande i en militär insats utomlands före, respektive efter, införandet av Responsibility to Protect., In the year of 2005 the United Nations decided on an initiative called the Responsibility to Protect. The initiative was based on the thought that the sovereignty of a state isn’t a right, but a privilege. Its purpose was to help prevent crimes against the civilian population. Crimes like genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.On march 17 2011 the UN security council authorized resolution 1973 which meant that an international NATO lead coalition could establish a no fly zone over Libya. This was done in order to protect the civilian population of Libya from the atrocities and assaults from the Gadhafi regime. This was the first time that the UN and the international community performed a military intervention motivated by the Responsibility to Protect. The Swedish contribution consisted of a force of up to eight JAS 39 Gripen, with personnel that were only authorized to engage targets in the sky, not on the ground. In 2002 the Swedish parliament decided to contribute with Swedish soldiers to Afghanistan. That time with the authorization to use deadly force if they needed to.This essay shall try and answer whether or not the Swedish military operation in Afghanistan was motivated by the same values as the one in Libya. This will be done in order to structure and problematize the concept of the Responsibility to Protect and how it may affect the Swedish contributions to international military interventions. This will be performed through a qualitative analysis of the protocols from the Swedish parliament that authorized and motivated the Swedish operations. The essay will focus on finding traces of values from the Responsibility to Protect from the arguments in the protocols.The results are not crystal clear, but arguments with a distinct connection to the Responsibility to Protect are found in all the protocols that are analyzed. The results of the analysis show a change of patterns in the way the Swedish parliamentarian’s debate for a Sw

Interventionen i Libyen var den första militära insatsen som legitimerades med normen skyldigheten att skydda. Vi undersöker om interventionen följer de riktlinjer som den legitimerades med. Vi gör en granskande fallstudie med inslag av en idealtypsanalys för att besvara vår frågeställning. I den följande texten kommer vi visa att den NATO-ledda koalitionens aktioner i Libyen i stort försöker följa de underliggande värdena för skyldigheten att skydda. Den slutsats som dras är att trots att man kan se en strävan hos NATO så skapar det mandat man fått av FN problem för koalitionen.

This study is about reform of the United Nations. The study does not address reform proposals that set out to change the organizational structure of the UN, but focuses on initiatives that affect the normative basis of the international society that the United Nations and the UN Charter enable and sustain. Empirically, the study focuses on the international principle responsibility 10 prolecl, which prescribes that states have an individual and collective responsibility to protect against human rights violations. It is argued that the responsibility to protect and the Security Council's increased attention to protection of civilians in armed conflicts are politically and legally significant developments that challenge the pluralist international order that was instituted through the establishment of the UN in 1945. Both the responsibility to proteet and the protection of civilians are based on an understanding of statehood and international society that in the study is referred to as anti-pluralist. The results of the study show that the contemporary notion of protection once again brings into international political discourse the idea that states and political communities, in order to enjoy legal autonomy and a right to non-intervention, must abide by universally applicable standards of state hood. The results also show that the idea of protection is based on a progressivist philosophy that leads to a differentiation of states., Den här avhandlingen handlar om reform av Förenta Natione'ma. Avhandlingen berör inte reformförslag som syftar till att förändra FN:s organisatoriska struktur, utan behandlar initiativ som påverkar det internationella samhälle som Förenta Nationerna och FN-stadgan möjliggör och upprätthåller. Empiriskt fokuserar avhandlingen på den internationella principen skyldighet alt skydda. Denna princip föreskriver att stater, individuellt och kollektivt, skall agera när fundamentala mänskliga rättigheter kränks. Avhandlingen hävdar att skyldigheten att skydda och Säkerhetsrådets ökade fokus på skydd av civila i väpnade konflikter är betydelsefulla utvecklingar som utmanar den pluralistiska internationella ordning som instiftades när FN bildades 1945. Skyldigheten att skydda och skyddet av civila är båda baserade på en förståelse av staten och det internationella samhället som i avhandlingen betecknas som anti-pluralistisk. Avhandlingens resultat visar att iden om en individuell och kollektiv skyldighet att skydda återintroducerar tanken att stater, för att åtnjuta rätten till juridisk självständighet och icke-intervention, måste rätta sig efter universe lla kriterier som bestämmer hur de skall vara och agera. Resultaten visar också att iden om ett individuellt och kollektivt ansvar att skydda bygger på en tanke om utveckling och progression som leder till att en åtskillnad görs mellan stater.