ernational debate combined with problematic legal frailties exposed within the UN’s policy on intervention after events transpired in Kosovo led to General Secretary of the UN Kofi Annan to call for a reconsideration of the thinking surrounding the concept of humanitarian intervention. The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), a group of independent experts, responded publishing a report entitled The Responsibility to Protect. It was aimed at addressing the points of contention surrounding humanitarian intervention, whilst also upholding a moral responsibility of both states and the international community to respond to ‘mass conflict’. (Weiss, Evans, Hubert 2001) The ICISS report also suggested that, at first, it is the responsibility of the state itself to act to protect its citizens, however, if the state itself is failing in those actions as a perpetrator or is simply unable to counteract mass atrocities, then the responsibility falls upon the international community to take action.(Ibid) The report also alludes to the fact that whilst methods of conflict resolution should be employed, the possibility of military action whilst seen as an ‘exceptional measure’, it was in no way discounted. A final important concept of the ICISS’s report was to extend humanitarian intervention further than military action, incorporating a responsibility to prevent, react and rebuild, concepts which are described as ‘emerging guiding principles’ by the report itself. (Ibid) Between 2001 and 2005, R2P was both endorsed and referred to as an ‘emerging norm’ by many including Kofi Annan within a report entitled, Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All. (Donald and Michael 2014, p10) The UN world summit held in September 2005, became a seminal event for the emergence of R2P however, as it was incorporated into the summit outcome document. Furthermore, its adoption was ratified by each UN member enforcing the concept of R2P as an ‘emerging norm’ within the global sphere not solely an empty political principle. The 2009 General Assembly debate surrounding a report written by UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon on its implementation globally has spread the culture of R2P further. Whilst within the debate, as Hehir argues, there was “little clarification of the criteria for intervention”, the fact that the report does not retract from any of the principles adopted in 2005, and outlined within the introduction, but constructively builds upon them, shows a level of global recognition for the importance of the R2P doctrine.(Hehir 2012, p54), (Badescu 2010, p8) It is clear, therefore, that R2P emerged from UN mistakes and frail international law surrounding humanitarian intervention, its subsequent conceptual development and its recognition by the international community has seen it evolve from an emerging political policy to a predominant international norm.

Having established both why and how R2P emerged to become an internationally accep