International Authority and the Responsibility to Protect

A study, from Hobbes to the UN, of attempts to ground authority on the capacity to guarantee protection.

Auteur

Anne Orford is the Michael D. Kirby Professor of International Law, an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow and Director of the Institute for International Law and the Humanities at the University of Melbourne. She researches in the areas of international law and legal theory, with a current focus on histories of international law, political theology and empire.

Résumé
The idea that states and the international community have a responsibility to protect populations has shaped debates about conflict prevention, humanitarian action, peacekeeping and territorial administration since 2001. This book offers a history, from Hobbes to the UN, of attempts to ground authority on the capacity to guarantee protection.

Contenu

1. Protection in the shadow of empire; 2. Practices of protection: from the parliament of man to international executive rule; 3. How to recognise lawful authority: Hobbes, Schmitt and the responsibility to protect; 4. Who decides? Who interprets?: jurisdiction, recognition and the institutionalisation of protection; 5. The question of status and the subject of protection.