International Policymaking. The Case of the Norm of the Responsibility to Protect

The norm of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) has received increasing international attention in the last few years. In summary R2P refers to a concept that arose in the late 1990s in Canada which emphasizes the responsibility that governments and the international community have to protect their population. Thus, it is a concept that attempts to redefine sovereignty from its traditional basis on rights to one based on duties and responsibilities. The importance of the R2P as a concept is that it is an attempt to shape global governance at the highest level. Therefore, it is an example of policymaking at the global level and serves as a good case study on how a concept arises, can be transformed into a norm, and ultimately is institutionalized in international law. There is a final step which involves the operationalization of the norm and this is the stage in which R2P can be found at the moment.