Protecting Human Rights in the 21st Century

Aidan Hehir is Reader in International Relations at the University of Westminster, UK. He is the author/editor of numerous titles, including Humanitarian Intervention: An Introduction (2nd edn, 2013) and The Responsibility to Protect: Rhetoric, Reality and the Future of Humanitarian Intervention (2012).Robert W. Murray is Managing Director at Dentons Canada LLP's Government Affairs and Public Policy Practice Group and Research Fellow at the Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies, University of Calgary, Canada. He is the author/editor of numerous titles, including Multilateralism as State Strategy (2016) and International Relations and the Arctic (2014).

'Aidan Hehir and Robert Murray have chosen an innovative strategy for surmounting the entrenched divide between scholars who believe in human rights, come what may, and commentators fatalistically resigned to the rights’ worthlessness on the ground. Instead of reflexively taking sides, the two collaborators present essays by international relations experts offering many alternative perspectives. This has freed the discourse from a straightjacket of dichotomous thinking and initiated a more generative process for finding consensus on how to move the human rights agenda forward.' -- Susan H. Bitensky, Michigan State University College of Law, USA 'There is a trend among atrocity prevention norm entrepreneurs to gather in like-minded groups, extol their virtues and control narratives to avoid criticism. This timely volume adopts a more inclusive and reflective approach; motivated by a determination to "get atrocity prevention right," the contributions here will help practitioners to examine our motives, our policy inconsistencies, and the gaps in our analysis and practice.' -- Robert Zuber, Director, Global Action to Prevent War and Armed Conflict'Refusing to be deluded by wishful thinking, the authors of this volume undertake a clear-eyed, critical analysis of R2P’s successes and failures. Steering between fatalism and denial, they concede that our awareness of atrocity and the protection of civilians has been enhanced by R2P but that its time has passed. In thinking about what comes next, there is no better place to start than this provocative and highly insightful book.' -- Stephen Hopgood, SOAS, University of London, UK

• Introduction: Denial, Fatalism and the Protection of Human Rights, Aidan Hehir Part I: Rethinking Fundamental Principles1. Global Constituent Power: Protests and Human Rights, Anthony F Lang, Jr 2. A Critical Examination of "Humanity", Samuel Jarvis 3. Failed Interventions and the Inherent Contradictions of Liberal Internationalism, Eric A. Heinze 4. Humanitarian Intervention in Post-American International Society, Robert W. Murray Part II: "Protection" and Peacekeeping5. The Uncertainties of International Protection, Kelly Staples 6. UN Peacekeeping and the Protection of Civilians Norm, Tom Keating 7. From Showpiece Interventions to Day-to-Day Civilian Protection: Western Humanitarian Intervention and UN Peacekeeping, Jonathan Gilmore and David Curran 8. The Responsibility to Protect or the Protection of Civilians: Which Policy Brand is more "Successful"?, Catherine Jones Part III: The Responsibility to Protect and Beyond9. Norm Complexity and Contestation: Unpacking the R2P, Alan Bloomfield 10. "Why is it that we keep failing?" The Responsibility to Protect as a Hollow Norm, Aidan Hehir 11. Guns Vs Troops: The Ethics of Supplying Arms, James Pattison 12. The Limits of R2P and the Case for Pacifism, Jeremy Moses 13. The Responsibility to Protect: A Long View, Justin Morris Conclusion: The Future of Human Rights Protection, Robert W. Murray