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How can a ‘Responsible’ European Union Contribute to the Implementation of the Responsibility to Protect?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2019

Pinar Gözen Ercan  and
Defne Günay
Pinar Gözen Ercan
Affiliation:
Hacettepe Universitesi, Iktisadi ve Idari Bilimler Fakultesi, Uluslararasi Iliskiler Bolumu, 06800 Beytepe-Ankara, Turkey. Email: [email protected]
Defne Günay
Affiliation:
Yasar Universitesi, Uluslararasi Iliskiler Bolumu, Universite Caddesi, Agacli Yol, no. 37-39, Bornova 35100 Izmir, Turkey
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Abstract

In 2013, in light of the mass atrocity cases in Libya and Syria, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament recommended ‘to reconfirm the EU’s commitment to R2P [Responsibility to Protect] by adopting an interinstitutional “Consensus on R2P”’. Despite such reaffirmation, the Union’s role in implementing R2P remains an open-ended question. To date, the EU’s contribution to R2P has rarely been studied. In our attempt to contribute to the literature, approaching the issue from an ethical perspective, we aim to answer the following questions: what are the existing capacities of the EU in contributing to R2P; and what can the EU do to be a more responsible actor in the future? After identifying the existing capacities of the Union, we analyse what the EU can do to make the international community more responsible in the future given that we have already left behind the first decade of the norm, which was characterized by inconsistent implementation. Finally, we conclude that the Union holds a genuine potential for further development and a consistent implementation of the norm mainly by utilizing its non-military tools.

Type
Articles
Information
European Review , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , October 2019 , pp. 490 - 505
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2019 

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References

References and Notes

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