A Christian Perspective on the Responsibility to Protect

Abstract

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is an international legal norm that reinterprets state sovereignty to offer justification for humanitarian interventions, and its practical and ethical implications have been analyzed by scholars like Alex J. Bellamy, Gareth Evans, and Mohamed Sahnoun. This paper evaluates R2P in light of a Christian worldview and concludes that it is consistent with a biblical view of humanity, sin, the role of the state and violence, but one should be wary of any salvific notions that it will end all atrocities. This argument contributes to the discourse because although much has been written about Christianity and Just War or pacifism, even less is written about the Christian ethics of military intervention, and hardly anything integrating a conceptual understanding of relevant international norms.