Michael Ignatieff - Sovereignty and Intervention, 1993-2013: Responsibility to Protect in Review
Channel: American Academy in Berlin
Date: 2013-05-16

As a member of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, Michael Ignatieff (Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Visitor) helped develop the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, a set of principles positing that sovereignty is not a right, but a responsibility to protect citizens from mass atrocities. Reflecting on the important changes that have occurred in the debate over when to intervene in sovereign states, Ignatieff analyzes what this ongoing and timely dispute reveals about both the international will to intervene and the varied understandings of the idea of sovereignty.