Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as Justification of Use of Force: Human Rights Protection through the Perspective of Just War Theory

Abstract

The paper focuses on the issues of military action in cases of human rights protection in mass atrocities when a state fails to protect its own civilians. The pressure escalated with new a concept of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) created for the protection of civilians in mass atrocities but mostly assimilated with the use of force. Central to discussions of international politics and law determined with the use of force that reconfigured R2P can justify the use of military force by one country against another. The paper seeks to illustrate from the standpoints of the Just War Theory that contemporary mission of R2P for the protection of human rights rather warfare against the enemy.