The International Society's Complementary Role in Mass Atrocities Responses: The Responsibility to Protect and The Responsibility to Prosecute

This interdisciplinary research project draws on the International Relations and International Criminal Law scholarship to explore new security and justice approaches to mass atrocity crises. Specifically, it examines the relationship between two emerging norms: the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) populations from mass atrocities and the Responsibility to Prosecute perpetrators of mass crimes, through the International Criminal Court (ICC), and how they advance new protection approaches. The International Relations literature on the R2P-ICC relationship is growing. Many see the Responsibility to Prosecute as implicit in R2P. The UN Secretary General and the ICC Prosecutor see the Court as a key tool for implementing R2P. International law scholars, however, tend to focus their analysis either on R2P or the ICC from a legal perspective, whereas this research seeks to add a more normative perspective. Despite the growing literature, there is a research gap regarding the normative status of the Responsibility to Prosecute, its normative relation to R2P and the changing nature of the legal-political knowledge concerning responses to mass atrocities and how this affects policy. This research seeks to address this lacuna and to achieve three goals. The first objective is to examine the origins and the 'making' of these responsibilities, focusing on the Responsibility to Prosecute, which is underresearched.
Following World War II, new international criminal justice principles developed, such as the 'duty to prosecute' and 'prosecute or extradite'. The Responsibility to Prosecute is a new term in the international criminal justice language. This research investigates who are the actors involved in creating this concept (governments, international organisations, academics, NGOs) and its history. Despite claims that the Responsibility to Prosecute goes back to the Nuremberg Trials, this thesis looks at it in the context of the emergence of R2P and the establishment of the ICC. This is significant because it illustrates that there is a push for these responsibilities to be linked. Second, this thesis examines the Responsibility to Prosecute and R2P's normative and legal status. It explores whether the Responsibility to Prosecute is a norm and has the same status and normative ambitions as R2P. It investigates the relation between punishment and protection and what 'in the interest of justice' ICC principle means. It then examines whether these responsibilities include any legal obligations or customary international law elements. This will allow me to look at state practice and discourse to analyse whether the great powers agree that there are Responsibilities to Protect and Prosecute, which is significant for understanding why states fulfil (or fail to fulfil) these responsibilities. The final objective is to examine how together
these responsibilities advance a protection discourse (a framework of thinking about protection) that is inherently interventionist and sees protection, justice and peace as order through liberal institutional governance. Conclusions will be drawn regarding the legal and political implications of this discourse, how it marginalises alternative approaches to protection and justice, and how it influences policy. I will use qualitative research methods, focusing on interpretative approaches. Utilising a Constructivist perspective, I will examine norm development and study the beliefs and meanings surrounding the two responsibilities. Primary data will add an element of originality, by conducting elite interviews with representatives of states, the ICC, the UN Joint Office on the Prevention of Genocide and R2P, and NGOs, such as the Global Centre for R2P and the Coalition for the ICC. This diverse data set will provide the basis for a detailed examination of the role that the Responsibilities to Protect and Prosecute play in the (re)production of the social and political order.