Perspectives on the Responsibility to Protect

By Ryan Hayes

Ryan Hayes is a 2017 cum laude graduate of SUNY Geneseo, where he studied International Relations. Following college, he served as a member of the United States Secret Service until he enrolled at Albany  Law School.

Ryan earned his Juris Doctor and graduated manga cum laude in May 2022. He currently practices law in Canandaigua, New York.

Humanitarian intervention remains a hotly contested, and arguably unsettled, area of international law. One of the most divisive legal theories in the realm of humanitarian intervention is the responsibility to protect (R2P), which has sparked intense debate among the international community since its inception.

The responsibility to protect stemmed from the international community’s failure to respond to genocides of the 1990s. However, the international community continues to grapple with the apparent conflict between R2P and the U.N. Charter’s protection of state sovereignty.

Analyzing R2P’s history, its contested status as law or politics, and its use in Iraq, Libya, and Syria help to demonstrate the apparent tension between the doctrine and the U.N. Charter. This tension poses serious concerns for practitioners, scholars, and for international security at large. 

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