Book talk - Liberal democracies and the responsibility to protect: lessons from Syria

Chloë McRae Gilgan will present her recently published book Liberal Democracies and the Responsibility to Protect: Lessons from Syria critically examining how the international norm of the Responsibility to Protect has been effectively limited by its interpretation by liberal states.

Under the Responsibility to Protect, states agree to use ‘diplomatic, humanitarian, and other peaceful means’ to help protect populations – often refugees – from mass atrocities when the state is ‘manifestly failing’ to do so. Through an analysis of official discourse, as well as interviews with government officials and civil society representatives, the book examines how the Responsibility to Protect articulated by UK and US governments was understood in the case of Syria. As the book demonstrates, the aspirations relied upon in the advocacy of the Responsibility to Protect are in constant tension with states’ conceptual understandings and practice of this norm. As the Syrian case indicates – and in a way that the book maintains as more generally representative – the Responsibility to Protect is routinely interpreted and modified in ways that effectively limit both its meaning and its implementation. In conclusion, the book’s analysis contributes to realising a more coherent government policy on atrocity prevention and response that does not undermine humanitarian protection and international consensus on the Responsibility to Protect.

Author 

Chloë McRae Gilgan is Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Lincoln. She holds a JD from New York Law School, a BA from Barnard College, Columbia University, and an ESRC-funded PhD from the University of York. She was admitted to the New York Bar in 2009 and previously worked in public interest law and immigration before entering academia. Her research bridges international human rights law, politics, international relations, and refugee studies, with a focus on the intersection of R2P and refugee law, as well as the gaps in protection for those fleeing mass atrocities. Her research has been published widely and presented globally.

Registration will close two hours before the event begins.