Responsibility to Protect: Protecting Humans in a World of States

This study aims to analyze problems in Responsibility to Protect from a theoretical perspective. Drawing on the English School theory, it argues that rules and institutions shared by individuals are in conflict with the rules and institutions shared among states. For the English School, values and rules shared by individuals as well as institutions built on them are elements of world society. Based on this definition, Responsibility to Protect is defined as an element of world society. Nevertheless, international society is responsible for the implementation of Responsibility to Protect. The English School defines international society as a form of order which is established by the values, rules and institutions that are shared among states. International society prevails against world society in a way to determine the political organization of the contemporary international relations. This study further argues that this is also the principal reason behind the problematic functioning of the responsibility to protect.