Liberal Democracies and the Responsibility to Protect Lessons from Syria

1. Introduction 2. Understanding State Behaviour 3. Resettlement as ‘Humanitarian’ and ‘Other Peaceful Means’ under R2P 4. The International Response to Syria and Syrian Refugees, 2014–2016 5. Localising R2P in the UK Government 6. Localising R2P in the US Government 7. Localising R2P in Civil Society 8. Feedback Effects, Lessons Learned, and Moving Forward 9. Conclusion

Biography

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.

‘A wonderful book that confronts the accountability gap among powerful liberal states and calls for a fundamental shift from rhetoric to action, urging states to prioritise human protection over political objectives.’
Dr Adrian Gallagher, Professor in Global Security and Mass Atrocity Prevention, University of Leeds, UK.

‘Drawing on detailed empirical analysis and sharp conceptual insight, this important book shows that human protection requires comprehensive approaches and cogently explains why that is so often difficult to achieve. A must read’.  
Alex J. Bellamy, Professor of Peace & Conflict Studies, University of Queensland, Director Asia Pacific Centre for R2P & Non-Resident Senior Adviser, International Peace Institute, Australia.

'In the past two decades, cutting-edge international law scholarship has increasingly looked outside the confines of our own discipline to find methodological tools and theoretical frameworks that help explain the functioning - or malfunctioning - of the international legal system. This book ties into this trend. In doing so, it provides a clear, systematic, critical and original application of constructivism to understand how the responsibility to protect norm is contested through localisation in two powerful liberal states (UK and US). In doing so, Dr Chloë McRae Gilgan explores little chartered and exceptionally important territory for the relevance of international human rights law today: Why do liberal states comply or not with international norms and how do they shape the meaning of compliance and thereby the norms themselves?' 
Professor Ioana Cismas, York Law School & Centre for Applied Human Rights, UK.