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The Responsibility to Protect is a relatively new doctrine within international relations based upon the principle that a state government is responsible for the wellbeing and protection of its constituents within the state, and that this responsibility, when unable to be upheld by the state, becomes the duty of the international community. Responsibility to protect undermines the core concepts of traditional Westphalian sovereignty but under Neo-liberal Institutionalist theory, does not undermine the concept of International Legal sovereignty, as described in Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy written by Stephen Krasner. This paper will assess the extent to which the Responsibility to Protect undermines the principles of state sovereignty in international politics by defining Westphalian and International Legal Sovereignty and the Responsibility to protect within the theory of Neo-liberal Institutionalism, as well as providing examples of the use of Responsibility to Protect. The term sovereignty is relatively vague, Krasner notes, and reveals the failure to recognize that the norms and rules of any international institutional systemwill have limited influence and always be subject to challenge because of logical contradictions (Krasner, 1999: 3) Rather, sovereignty is divided into four different levels: International Legal Sovereignty, Westphalian Sovereignty, Interdependence Sovereignty and Domestic Sovereignty; each group representing a different scope of sovereignty.

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International Legal Sovereignty is based upon the establishment of recognition within the international system. The state enters into the international realm and is accepted as an autonomous entity. Sovereignty, independence and consent are comparable with the position that the individual has in the liberal theory of the state... Recognition is extended to entities, states, with territory and formal juridical autonomy (Weiler, 1991, referenced in Krasner, 1999: 14) Since International Legal Sovereignty is extended to entities, states (Krasner,1999: 14) it is implied that International Legal Sovereignty itself is dependant on widespread acceptance and approval in the international community. Former Foreign Secretaries for the United Kingdom and Canada, Robin Cook and Lloyd Axworthy argue that states should forfeit their rights to be treated as sovereign if they massively abuse the human rights of their citizens (Wheeler, 2001) Francis Kofi Abiew, a professor and author specializing in state sovereignty and international human rights echoes Cook and Axworthys view in his book, The evolution of the doctrine and practice of humanitarian intervention, affirming the claim that sovereign rights should be dependand upon the protection of minimum standards of common humanity (Abiew, 1999, Referenced within Wheeler, 2001) In both these cases, sovereignty is viewed not as an absolute entity, but rather as conditional upon the states ability to care for the people within their territory. In a book published in 1996 by Deng et al. titled Sovereignty as Responsibility: Conflict Management in Africa, this concept is expanded even further; stating that when nations do not conduct their internal affairs in ways that meet internationally recognized standards, other nations not only have the right, but also the duty, to intervene. (Deng et al. 1996, referenced in Etzioni, 2006) The authors effectively redefine the term sovereignty as the responsibility to

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protect the people in a given territory (Etzioni, 2006) challenging the traditional concept of Westphalian Sovereignty. Westphalian Sovereignty is based upon the principles of territoriality and the exclusion of external actors from domestic authority structures (Krasner, 1999: 20) and based upon the Treaty of Westphalia 1648, defining state sovereignty as a territorial matter in which external actors such as other states are excluded from domestic affairs. Westphalian sovereignty is violated when external actors exert influence or determine domestic authority structures. (Krasner, 1999: 20) Krasner notes that Westphalian sovereignty can also be limited when rulers establish supranational or extranational authority structures constrain their own domestic autonomy: they can extend invitations, sometimes inadvertent, that result in compromises of their own Westphalian sovereignty. (Krasner, 1999: 20) Westphalian sovereignty, arguably, is constrained and even forfeited upon admittance to the United Nations and other international organizations and institutions, as demonstrated by the theory of Neo-liberal Institutionalism, which paints Westphalian sovereignty as an organized hypocrisy (Krasner, 1999: 69) in which the Westphalian model of sovereignty is infringed upon for the collective good of international order; (Arbour, 2008) a practice which is becoming increasingly applied through the invocation of the Responsibility to Protect, leading to an emerging practice within International Relations, and ultimately, downplaying the importance of traditional Westphalian Sovereignty. Responsibility to Protect as an official doctrine is relatively new; being universally declared by world leaders at the United Nations 2005 World Summit that
all states have a responsibility to protect their citizens from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing and that as members of the international community they stand prepared to take collective action in cases where national authorities are manifestly failing to protect

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their populations from these four ills (A/60/L.1, September 20, 2005, para.139, quoted from Bellamy, 2009)

and reaffirmed on April 28, 2006 in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1674. However, the Responsibility to Protect principle has been long supported by legal cases and state practice, notably by Nobel Peace Prize winner Ren Cassin. The responsibility to protect extends upon the principles built into the United Nations Charter by configuring a permanent duty to protect individuals against abusive behaviour. (Arbour, 2008) Responsibility to protect also expands upon United Nations Security Council Resolution 1265; a preceding resolution expressing the [Security] Councils willingness to respond to situations of armed conflict where civilians are being targeted or where humanitarian assistance to civilians is being deliberately obstructed. And committing it to consider adopting appropriate measures. (Bellamy, 2009) The Responsibility to Protect is not only concerned with the use of force, but also a normative and moral and normative and moral undertaking requiring a state to protect its own citizens (Pace and Deller, 2005, Quoted in Bellamy, 2009) The doctrine of Responsibility to Protect is, in effect, an expansion of United Nations authority and the product of the declining importance of Westphalian sovereignty while at the same time, a rapid growth in the importance of International Legal Sovereignty as a principle means for defining sovereignty within a global forum. The continuing evolution of sovereignty and its shift from the Westphalian model lies within the acceptance of the idea that states have a moral duty to ensure peaceful existence. (Feinstein and Slaughter, 2004, Referenced in Etzioni, 2006) Feinstein and Slaughter argue that the duty of the international community is to ensure that nations acting irresponsibly in this regard [the procurement of Weapons of ! ! ! "'"! ! ! ! !

Mass Destruction] lose the privileges of sovereignty and become subject to intervention. (Etzioni, 2006) In this sense, sovereignty is relegated to a privilege that is conditionally upheld. According to Deng et al. sovereignty is
not merely the right to be undisturbed from without, but the responsibility to perform the tasks expected of an effective government the right to inviolability should be regarded as lost, first voluntarily as the state asks for help from its peers, and then involuntarily as it has help imposed on it in response to its own inactivity or incapacity and to the unassuaged needs of its own people the sovereign states responsibility and accountability to both domestic and external constituencies must be affirmed as interconnected principles of national and international order. (Deng et al. 1996, Quoted in Etzioni, 2006)

It is also noted that this principle, although not universally accepted is becoming increasingly recognized as the centrepiece of sovereignty (Deng et al. Quoted in Etzioni, 2006) In the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina v. Serbia, the International Court of Justice found Serbia guilty of violating Article 1 of the Genocide Convention to the extent of failing to prevent genocide in the territory of a neighbouring state, stating that If the State has available to it means likely to have a deterrent effect on those suspecting of preparing genocide, or reasonably suspected of harbouring specific intent, it is under a duty to make use of these means as the circumstances permit. (ICJ Judgement, para. 430, Referenced in Arbour, 2008) According to the ruling, Serbia was found to be in violation of its moral responsibility to involuntarily provide aid to BosniaHerzegovina, a state that was, at the time, unable to provide for the collective security and wellbeing of its people. The International Court of Justice ruling affirms the responsibility of the international community to aid states that are unable to protect their population and, as Arbour notes, the concept of responsibility to protect holds that all States are concurrently burdened with a responsibility to protect which they share irrespective of their location. (Arbour, 2008) Increasingly, the Westphalian ! ! ! "("! ! ! ! !

model of sovereignty is becoming outmoded within the Neo-liberal Institutionalist view for that of International Legal sovereignty, and also the concept of sovereigntyas-accountability. (Deng et al. 1996, Feinstein and Slaughter, 2004, Cook and Axworthy, Pace and Deller, 2005) In the Secretarys General Annual Report to the General Assembly in 1999, Secretary General Kofi Annan expressed the moral obligation of the Responsibility to Protect asking the question If, in those dark days and hours leading up to the genocide [in Rwanda, a coalition of states had been prepared to act in defence of the Tutsi population, but did not receive prompt Council authorization, should such a coalition have stood aside and allowed the horror to unfold? (Secretary Generals Annual Report to the General Assembly, Press Release SG/SM7136 GA/9596, http://srch I.un.org: 80, 20 September 1999, Quoted in Wheeler, 2001) Former Secretary Annans question raises the secondary question of whether or not moral responsibility supersedes Westphalian sovereignty. In the case of NATO intervention in Kosovo the Responsibility to Protect as an option is grounded in either the Charter or customary international law (Abiew, 1999: 133, Quoted in Wheeler, 2001) and generally accepted, although tacitly, as a viable course of action. (Abiew, 1999, Referenced in Wheeler, 2001) Abiew argues that the silent acquiescence (Abiew, 1999: 135, Quoted in Wheeler, 2001) of states to Indian and Tazanian interventions staged during the 1970s, as well as a lack of outcry in the international population amounted to legitimization of the practice, an erosion of the importance of Westphalian sovereignty, and a redefinition of sovereignty as a conditional entity. The NATO intervention in Kosovo is the first instance since the creation of the United Nations that a group of states has violated Westphalian sovereignty upon the grounds of humanitarian intervention without the explicit consent of the United Nations ! ! ! ")"! ! ! ! !

Security Council, succinctly answering Former Secretary General Annans question in the negative: No, such a coalition should not stand aside and allow the horror of a genocide to unfold. This position is reinforced in Stephen Garretts Doing good and Doing Well (1999) where Garrett not only appeals for the development of a system of qualified sovereignty (Garrett, 1999: 181, Referenced in Wheeler, 2001) but also states that unauthorized intervention by a stateis preferable to inaction if this ends genocide and mass murder. (Garrett, 1999, Referenced in Wheeler, 2001) Increasingly, as in the case of Westphalian sovereignty is violated, and International Legal sovereignty is forfeited based upon the inability of a government to protect its people, and the Responsibility to Protect doctrine is utilized to legitimize the protection of a states population through the involvement of the international community. These actions characterize two growing accepted norms; that of sovereignty as a conditionally upheld entity, and of the Responsibility to Protect being a moral obligation shared by the international community. The Responsibility to Protect doctrine infringes upon traditional Westphalian sovereignty to the utmost extent. However, this doctrine works synergistically with Neo-liberal Institutionalist theory in that the international community has a moral obligation to protect peoples otherwise rendered defenceless by the inability of their own state to provide for their security. The new definition of sovereignty as conditional within the international system relegates it to secondary importance in regards to the Responsibility to Protect. In contemporary international politics, the Responsibility to Protect minimally undermines the principles of state sovereignty

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Bibliography
Arbour, Louise (2008), The responsibility to protect as a duty of care in international law and practice, Review of International Studies, Vol. 34, pp. 445-458. Bellamy, Alex J. (2009), Realizing the Responsibility to Protect, International Studies Perspectives, Vol. 10, No 2, pp. 111-128. Etzioni, Amitai (2006) Sovereignty as Responsibility, Orbis, Vol. 50, No 1, pp. 7185 Krasner, S. (1999) Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Wheeler, Nicholas J. (2001), Humanitarian Intervention after Kosovo: Emergent Norm, Moral Duty or the Coming Anarchy?, International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs), Vol. 77, No 1, pp. 113-128.

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