The Tragedy of Darfur and the Limits of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’

Abstract

The view that states which claim sovereign status must comply with the responsibility to protect their own citizens is gaining ground in international politics. When a state is unable or unwilling to meet this responsibility, the international community is justified in intervening militarily to end widespread human rights violations. This article argues that a diffuse responsibility to protect, as currently conceived, may have important negative consequences. By using the ongoing tragedy of Darfur as an example, the article argues that the responsibility to protect is reactive and focused on the short term, contributes to the outbreak of violence and perversely provides repressed groups with a further incentive to continue their armed struggle after war breaks out. The tragedy of Darfur shows that effective protection requires case-specific policies aimed at prevention, democratization and economic and political development.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Silvia Casini, Stefan Andreasson and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Needless to say, I am solely responsible for any remaining errors.

Notes

1. For the purpose of this paper, I use the terms ‘military intervention’ and ‘humanitarian intervention’ interchangeably although ‘humanitarian intervention’, strictly speaking, also includes non-military actors and activities, such as those of non-governmental organizations and the provision of material aid (i.e. food, medicines, etc.).

2. The literature is vast and growing. Useful collections are Holzgrefe & Keohane (2003), Lang (2003) and Welsh (2004).

3. See in particular Bellamy (2002), Grigorian (2005) and Belloni (2002).