The Responsibility to Protect in Latin America

This books assesses the opportunities for the normative and practical advancement of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in Latin America.

The volume identifies the points of resistance and potential obstacles to the advancement of R2P in Latin America, a region often overlooked in this context but which has considerable potential to advance the R2P cause. This is both on account of the progress that human rights have made on the continent since the 1980s, and of the experience there of the crimes envisaged by the R2P norm.

The book is divided into two sections. The first part offers a detailed study of the evolution of views and attitudes towards the R2P in eight different country cases. Individual chapters provide an analysis of the way in which the debate on humanitarian intervention and the R2P evolved in the period between NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999, and the endorsement of the R2P in paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 Summit Outcome Document. These analyses, together with the statements delivered by different delegations in the 2009 R2P debate in the General Assembly provide the basis for a more thorough diagnosis of the movement of each country along a spectrum whose most noticeable aspect has been the movement of formerly neutral states towards more active support. Although the group of countries considered in this study does not include declared 'spoilers', the evolution of the positions of both Brazil, and most notably Bolivia, offers substantial evidence of the opportunities for normative advancement. Each case-study offers a brief overview of the main variables and factors that account for the country’s position towards R2P. The study thus begins by tracing each country’s record in human rights norms. This brief historical account of the role played by each country in both the regional and international human rights regimes provides the background for the in-depth analysis of a rich variety of trajectories.

This book will be of much interest to students of the Responsibility to Protect, Latin American politics, international law, human rights, IR and security studies.