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The Three Pillars of the Responsibility to Protect
Authors: Edgar Meyroyan
Number of views: 104
The Responsibility to Protect principle, as shall be seen, incorporates within its framework three distinct but simultaneously related to each other phases. The objective of this paper is therefore to examine the purpose and importance of each of these phases in more details, which will thereby help us understand both the weaknesses and the potential the principle has for further development.
The said pillars are: the responsibility to prevent, the responsibility to react, and the responsibility to rebuild, respectively. Here, I shall separately analyze the causes and tools available for the prevention of the crisis, but also less coercive and more coercive tools when the matter comes to reacting to the crisis. The paper will also examine "just cause" criteria and the "precautionary principles" which are necessary when dealing with the question of "when and who should intervene?", along with the 'Moderate Instrumentalist Approach' developed by James Pattison, which is important from the standpoint of understanding the effectiveness of the intervener. Further on, the work is devoted to the last phase of the Responsibility to Protect. Here, I shall primarily analyze the questions of who should undertake the rebuilding process and who has the right capacity to do that. These are the questions of the utmost importance, for if the rebuilding process is avoided or done improperly, the crisis will gain control again. And in this respect, I will argue that it is the international community in the face of the United Nations which is best fit to carry out the rebuilding process.