Responsibility to protect
2000: International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty

In 2001, ICISS released a report titled "The Responsibility to Protect" Archived 2016-01-09 at the Wayback Machine. In a radical reformulation of the meaning of state sovereignty, the report argued that sovereignty entailed not only rights but also responsibilities, specifically a state's responsibility to protect its people from major violations of human rights. This idea rested on earlier work by Francis Deng and Roberta Cohen regarding internally displaced persons. Inspiration may also be attributed to Jan Eliasson, who in response to a questionnaire on internally displaced persons distributed by Francis Deng, stated that assisting populations at risk within their own country was "basically a question of striking a balance between sovereignty and solidarity with people in need." The ICISS report further asserted that, where a state was "unable or unwilling" to protect its people, the responsibility should shift to the international community and "the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect." The ICISS argued that any form of military intervention is "an exceptional and extraordinary measure", and, as such, to be justified it must meet certain criteria, including:
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