A Rifle and a Bag of Rice: Excluding Climate Disasters from the Scope of the Responsibility to Protect

Abstract

Abstract The connection between climate change and atrocities has recently attracted scholarly attention. To illuminate the constraints of r2p as a response to climate-induced crises, I examine two debates on the applicability of r2p to natural disasters utilising Quentin Skinner’s ideas on intentions and the English School concepts of pluralism and solidarism. I propose an idea of r2p as a social contract of which the English School concepts provide competing readings and study the debates through this framework. I examine how pluralist and solidarist convictions were used in arguing for the same conception of the scope of r2p. Although it was broadly agreed that the concept did not apply to natural disasters, the statements given exposed a division of intentions: whereas solidarists sought to keep r2p alive, pluralists strived to safeguard sovereign rights. I argue that despite r2p’s narrow focus, the links between climate change and atrocities should not be ignored.