The Responsibility to Protect Applied to Internally Displaced Persons

The attempt to reconcile humanitarian intervention and state sovereignty is an ongoing challenge in international relations. Security and human rights concerns are set in perspective of the principle of non-intervention, as codified in international law and in the practice of the current international order. The issues at stake are sensitive and varied involving political, strategic, moral, legal and operational considerations. The Responsibility to Protect concept provides insights into the question of whether intervention can be considered to protect the victims of persecution, by stating that military intervention must be assessed according to specific criteria, and only undertaken in limited circumstances. This dissertation examines the link between the responsibility to protect concept and internally displaced persons, by reference to work published on humanitarian intervention, ethics, international law, human rights, internal displacement, and elite interviews. The present research challenges the notion that there are only a few, limited, theoretical explanations to international relations, by demonstrating that norms can also emerge from practice and current realities. It argues that the responsibility to protect is applicable to internal displacement situations, and that there has been a process of normative development relating to the responsibility to protect, which has impacted the current status of international relations.