In order to reflect the country’s liberal internationalism, Canadian politicians have promoted and theoretically justified the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) since its inception, a concept that attempts to reconcile the notion of sovereignty with the moral obligation to protect human rights abroad. I will study the theoretical frame that Canada developed for the concept and its implications for Canadian foreign policy, in the Iraq and Darfur cases.
I argue that Canada has struggled to translate the concept into practice. On the one hand, it appears that Canadian officials have used R2P only to justify their opposition to unilateral American policies (e.g. during the Iraq war in 2003). On the other hand, in other cases, such as the crisis in Darfur in 2003, Ottawa seems unable to overcome domestic interests that would be in risk if R2P were to be applied, or Canada’s limited capacities to enforce the concept become evident.
