The Oxford Handbook of the Responsibility to Protect

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is intended to provide an effective framework for responding to crimes of genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It is a response to the many conscious-shocking cases where atrocities - on the worst scale - have occurred even during the post 1945 period when the United Nations was built to save us all from the scourge of genocide. The R2P concept accords to sovereign states and international institutions a responsibility to assist peoples who are at risk - or experiencing - the worst atrocities. R2P maintains that collective action should be taken by members of the United Nations to prevent or halt such gross violations of basic human rights.

This Handbook, containing contributions from leading theorists, and practitioners (including former foreign ministers and special advisors), examines the progress that has been made in the last 10 years; it also looks forward to likely developments in the next decade.

Alex Bellamy is Director of the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect and Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at The University of Queensland, Australia. He is also Non-Resident Senior Adviser at the International Peace Institute, New York and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. He currently serves as Secretary of the High Level Advisory Panel on the Responsibility to Protect in Southeast Asia, chaired by Dr. Surin Pitsuwan. Recent books includeResponsibility to Protect: A Defense (OUP, 2015) and Massacres and Morality (OUP, 2012).


Tim Dunne is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of International Relations at The University of Queensland, where he is also a Senior Researcher at the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. Tim is a widely published author, including most recently the co-edited book Liberal World Orders (Oxford: OUP/British Academy 2013). He is currently completing a co-edited book for publication with Oxford in 2016, on The Globalisation of International Society.