Summary

• The RtoP principle rests on three pillars: the responsibility of the state to protect its population; the international community’s responsibility to assist the state to fulfil its responsibility to protect; in situations where a state has manifestly failed to protect its population, the international community’s responsibility to take timely and decisive action through peaceful diplomatic and humanitarian means and, if that fails, other more forceful means.
• Measures relating to RtoP must enjoy the consent of the state concerned except when they are mandated by the UN Security Council.
• »Prevention« is the single most important dimension of RtoP. Even in the most extreme case, coercive force should only be applied as a last resort.
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