Responsibility to protect: the never-ending rhetoric or actual baseline for the EUs possible action

Abstract

The thesis focuses on the concept of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) within the framework of the European Union’s external action. The RtoP presents the newly emerging international norm aiming at prevent war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and ethnic cleansing, therefore its operationalisation is highly desirable. The regional organisations are well placed to play an important role in this respect. The thesis analyses to what extent can the EU invoke the RtoP in its foreign policies in the future showing that the RtoP elements and obligations already exist in the EU law as well as the EU possesses the impressive toolbox of the mechanisms ready to be deployed in the RtoP situations. Furthermore, the EU has been vocally very supportive of the RtoP since its creation. To what extent is/will be the EU able to transcend the mere rhetoric and actually regularly use the RtoP in its external policies? The current case of Libya shows that EU is able to follow the RtoP guidelines reflecting already the existing practice, however, one main obstacles hamper the full RtoP realization by the EU – lack of its codification in the EU law and instruments.