Apabila negara gagal melindungi warganya dari empat tindak kekerasan di atas dan gagal menegakkan perdamaian, masyarakat internasional bertanggung jawab untuk campur tangan lewat tindakan koersif seperti sanksi militer. Intervensi militer dianggap sebagai pilihan terakhir. resort.
Meski R2P adalah norma yang diusulkan, bukan hukum, para pendukungnya menegaskan bahwa R2P didasarkan pada prinsip-prinsip hukum internasional, terutama prinsip terkait kedaulatan, perdamaian dan keamanan, hak asasi manusia, dan konflik bersenjata.[6][7]
^Taylor Owen; Anouk Dey (5 April 2011). "R2P: More than a slogan". thestar.com. Diarsipkan dari versi asli tanggal 2015-12-22. Diakses tanggal 10 September 2013. Emerging from a Canadian-funded commission in 2001 into how the international community should react when faced with mass atrocity crimes, the concept is intended to put a degree of conditionality on the notion of sovereignty. The sovereign rights of states, R2P argues, are conditional on the protection of civilians against large-scale slaughter. If a state is unable or unwilling to protect its people, the international community has a responsibility to step in, using peaceful or coercive means.
^"2005 World Summit Outcome"(PDF). United Nations General Assembly, Sixtieth session, items 48 and 121 of the provisional agenda. A/60/L.1, 40 pages. Diakses tanggal 2012-01-07.
Baylis and Smith, The Globalization of World Politics, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 394
Deng, Francis, Rothchild, Donald, et al. "Sovereignty as Responsibility Conflict Management in Africa". (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, September 1996). c. 290pp.
Downes, Paul. Melville's Benito Cereno and Humanitarian Intervention South Atlantic Quarterly. 103.2–3. Spring/Summer 2004, pp. 465–488.
Evans, Gareth. The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All. (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, September 2008)
Hehir, Aidan. "The Responsibility to Protect: Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing?" International Relations. 24/2 2010.
Gallagher, Adrian. 'A Clash of Responsibilities: Engaging with Realist Critiques of the R2P', Global Responsibility to Protect, vol. 4, no. 3, 2012, 334–357.
Köchler, Hans, Humanitarian Intervention in the Context of Modern Power Politics. Is the Revival of the Doctrine of "Just War" Compatible with the International Rule of Law? (Studies in International Relations, XXVI.) Vienna: International Progress Organization, 2001.
Axworthy, Lloyd and Allan Rock (2009) “R2P: A New and Unfinished Agenda.” Global Responsibility to Protect 1(1): 54-69.
Bellamy, Alex J. 2006. ‘Whither the Responsibility to Protect: Humanitarian Intervention and the 2005 World Summit’. Ethics and International Affairs 20(2): 143-177.
Bellamy, A. J. 2008. ‘Conflict prevention and the responsibility to protect’. Global Governance 14(2): 135-156.
Bellamy, Alex J. 2008. ‘The Responsibility to Protect and the problem of military intervention’. International Affairs 84(4): 615-639
Bellamy, A. J. 2009. ‘Realizing the Responsibility to Protect’. International Studies Perspectives 10(2): 111-128.
Bellamy, Alex J. 2009. Responsibility to Protect: The Global Effort to End Mass Atrocities, Cambridge: Polity.
Bellamy, A. J. 2010. ‘The responsibility to protect and Australian foreign policy’. Australian Journal of International Affairs 64(4): 432-448.
Bellamy, Alex J. 2010 “The Responsibility to Protect: Five Years On” Ethics and International Affairs 24(2). 143-169
Bellamy, Alex J. 2011. Global politics and the responsibility to protect: from words to deeds. Abingdon: Routledge.
Bellamy, Alex J. and Sara E. Davies. 2009. ‘The Responsibility to Protect in the Asia-Pacific Region’. Security Dialogue 40(6): 547-574.
Breau, Susan C. “The Impact of the Responsibility to Protect on Peacekeeping.” Journal of Conflict & Security Law 11, no. 3 (2006): 429-64
Briggs, E. Donald, Walter C. Soderlund and Abdel Salam Sidahmed. 2010. The responsibility to protect in Darfur: the Role of Mass Media. Lanham: Lexington Books.
Chandler, David. 2005. ‘The Responsibility to Protect: Imposing the Liberal Peace’. In Peace Operations and Global Order, eds Alex J. Bellamy and Paul D. Williams. London: Routledge.
Chataway, Teresa. 2007. ‘Towards normative consensus on responsibility to protect’. Griffith Law Review 16(1): 193.
Dallaire, Romeo. 2005. ‘The Responsibility to Protect’. New England Journal of Public Policy 19(2)
Davies, Sara, Alex J. Bellamy and Luke Glanville. 2011. The Responsibility to Protect and International Law. Leiden Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
Doyle, Michael W. 2011. ‘International Ethics and the Responsibility to Protect’. International Studies Review 13(1): 72-84.
Evans, Gareth. 2004. ‘When is it Right to Fight?’. Survival 46(3): 59-82.
Evans, Gareth. 2004. ‘The Responsibility to Protect: Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention’. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting, reprinted in American Society of International Law 98: 78-89.
Evans, G., The Responsibility to Protect: End Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All, Washington D.C.: Brookings Institute, 2008
Evans, Gareth. 2009. ‘Russia, Georgia and the Responsibility to Protect’. Amsterdam Law Forum 1(2): 25-28.
Hunt, Charles T. and Alex J. Bellamy. 2011. ‘Mainstreaming the Responsibility to Protect in Peace Operations’. Civil Wars 13(1): 1-20.
Ki-Moon, Ban, The Role of Regional and Sub-Regional Arrangements in Implementing the Responsibility to Protect, A/65/877–S/2011/39, 28 June 2011.
Luck, Edward C., ‘The United Nations and the Responsibility to Protect’, Stanley Foundation Policy Analysis Brief, August 2008
Luck, Edward C. 2011. ‘The Responsibility to Protect: Growing Pains or Early Promise?’. Ethics & International Affairs 24(4): 34
Pattison, James. 2010. Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility To Protect. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Paley, Gregory R., 2005. The responsibility to protect: East, West and Southern African perspectives on preventing and responding to humanitarian crises. Waterloo, Ontario: Project Ploughshares.
Teitt, Sarah. 2011. ‘The Responsibility to Protect and China’s Peacekeeping Policy’. International Peacekeeping 18(3): 298-312.
Thakur, Ramesh. 2003. ‘In defence of the responsibility to protect’. The International Journal of Human Rights 7(3): 160-178
Thakur, Ramesh. 2005. ‘A Shared Responsibility for a More Secure World’. Global Governance 11(3): 281-289.
Thakur, Ramesh Chandra. 2011. The Responsibility to Protect: Norms, Laws, and the Use of Force in International Politics. New York: Routledge.
Voinov Kohler, Juliette and Richard H. Cooper. 2008. The Responsibility to Protect: the Global Moral Compact for the 21st Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Weiss, Thomas and Don Hubert. 2001. The Responsibility to Protect: Research, Bibliography, Background. Ottawa: ICISS.
Weiss, Thomas G. 2004. ‘The Sunset of Humanitarian Intervention? The Responsibility to Protect in a Unipolar Era’. Security Dialogue 35(2): 135-153.