The Responsibility to Protect and Prosecute: The Parallel Erosion of Sovereignty and Impunity

Abstract

The above lines are among the most popular and widely quoted lines of poetry in the English language. As well as the beauty of language, they have a haunting relevance for contemporary international politics. The multilateral system of global governance centred on the United Nations is in danger of falling apart. In that case, the problem of international anarchy will intensify. Yet in part the system is starting to unravel because of the spread of anarchy within the sovereign jurisdiction of member states of the international organization, some of whom have abused the attribute of state sovereignty underpinning the contemporary world order as a licence to kill with impunity. Some others lack the essential attributes of sovereignty that would enable them to protect the lives and safety of their citizens against a range of armed predatory groups. Revulsion at the murder of large numbers of civilians in a range of atrocity crimes—the drowning of the ceremony of innocence—has led to a softening of public and governmental support for the norms and institutions that shield the perpetrators of atrocity crimes from international criminal accountability. The failure to act can indeed be interpreted as the best lacking the courage of their conviction while the worst engage in mass murder with passionate intensity. “Mobilizing political will” is a more prosaic way of saying that the best need to rediscover and act on their convictions