The Responsibility to Protect and Regional Organisations: The Example of the European Union

Abstract

The present paper researches the extent to which the international responsibility to protect, as adopted by the international community in the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document, has since been implemented by the European Union. For this reason, the paper first analyses the context in which the contribution of the European Union should be assessed, both from the perspective of the United Nations and of regional arrangements and agencies. The paper sets out to discuss the general contours of the global-regional relationship in the maintenance of international peace and security and its application to the responsibility to protect. Through a brief discussion of the implementation of the latter notion in the work of organisations in regions affected by conflict, the paper discusses the position adopted by the European Union on the responsibility to protect, both internally and externally, in theory and in practice through a case study of the reaction of the international community to the Libya crisis.

Keywords: Responsibility to Protect, International Law, European Union, Regional Organisations, United Nations, Crisis Management