About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

2 Global Resp. Protect 353 (2010)
From Sovereignty as Responsibility to the Responsibility to Protect

handle is hein.journals/gloresp2 and id is 371 raw text is: MARTINUS                                                               fD
NIJHOFF                                                                   fz
P U B L I S H E R S  Global Responsibility to Protect 2 (2010) 353-370  brill.nIl/gr2p
From 'Sovereignty as Responsibility'
to the 'Responsibility to Protect'*
Francis M. Deng
Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General for the Prevention of Genocide
dengf@un.org
Abstract
This essay examines the origins and evolution of the concepts of 'sovereignty as responsibility'
and the 'responsibility to protect'. In particular, it considers the role and duty of states and how
ideas of sovereignty have evolved since the modern nation-state was conceived by the European
Treaty ofWestphalia of 1648. It then examines the responsibility of states towards their own citi-
zens and traces the development of the R2P norm in Africa as it has related to conflict preven-
tion, management, and resolution since the end of the Cold War. The essay further considers the
responsibilities of national democratic governments in Africa and beyond. Recent developments
that have widened the scope and helped the acceptance and application of the concept of'sover-
eignty as responsibility' are discussed, and the essay concludes with an examination of the
accountability and enforcement challenges faced by R2P.
Keywords
Sovereignty as responsibility, responsibility to protect, nation-state, Westphalia, post-Cold War
Africa, democratic government, accountability, genocide, United Nations
Introduction
The state is the cornerstone of the international system and the concept of
state sovereignty continues to be a fundamental norm within the international
order. Human rights and humanitarian principles, of course, provide a basis
* This essay builds on Francis M. Deng et al, Sovereignty as Responsibility: Conflict Management
in Africa (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1996); Francis M. Deng, Africas
Internally Displaced and the Development of International Norms: Standards versus Imple-
mentation', in Jeremy I. Levitt (ed.), Africa: Mapping New Boundaries in International Law
(Oxford: Hart Publishers, 2008), pp. 65-102; and Francis M. Deng, 'The Evolution of the Idea
of Sovereignty as Responsibility, in Adekeye Adebajo (ed.), From GlobalApartheid to Global
Village: Africa and the United Nations (Scottsville: University of Kwazulu-Natal Press, 2009),
pp. 191-213.

@ Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010

DOI 10. 1163/1875984 10X519534

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

profiles profiles most