Konstantin Kleine, ‘Will R2P be ready when disaster strikes? – The rationale of the Responsibility to Protect in environmental context’ (2015) 19 The International Journal of Human Rights 1176–1189
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Sovereignty as responsibility is more than self-restraint not to commit atrocity crimes, it entails the protection from serious harm of anyone subject to this sovereignty.
This article answers the question whether the rationale behind the Responsibility to Protect can be applied or should be applicable in an environmental context. While the original report by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which developed the Responsibility to Protect, allowed for such application, the discussion remained mainly centred on the protection from atrocity crimes. To this end, the article first assesses the two main rationales behind the Responsibility to Protect which are implied in the present discourse about the Responsibility to Protect and then applies the more favourable rationale to three scenarios within an environmental context.
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