Is the Responsibility to Protect an Accepted Norm of International Law in the post-Libya Era?
This article explores the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) in the post-Libya era to determinewhether it is now an accepted norm of international law. It examines what RtoP means intoday`s world and whether the norm now means that steps will be taken against states thatare committing serious human rights violations. The building blocks of RtoP are examined tosee how to make the doctrine more relevant and more applicable. It is contended that theresponsibility to react should be viewed through a much wider lens and that it needs to bemore widely interpreted to allow it to gain greater support. It is argued that there is a need tofocus far more on the responsibility to rebuild and that it ought to focus on the transitionallegal architecture as well as transitional justice. It is contended that these processes ought notto be one-dimensional, but ought to have a variety of constituent parts. It is further arguedthat the international and donor community ought to be far more engaged and far moredirective in these projects.