Delimitation of Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: A Conceptual Approach

Abstract

The responsibility to protect was conceived over a decade ago to remedy certain theoretical and practical shortcomings of the doctrine of humanitarian intervention, and to reconceptualize the increasingly frustrating debate on the subject. These objectives inevitably raise the need to delimitate the two categories on a conceptual level. This paper seeks to accomplish that task by briefly introducing and comparing the evolution and principal conceptual elements of humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect. Bearing in mind that humanitarian intervention has never had a generally accepted definition, the delimitation promises to be a rather challenging academic endeavour, but its results may contribute to a better understanding of the responsibility to protect.

Keywords: concept, definition, delimitation, humanitarian intervention, responsibility to protect