1 A Challenging Time for Atrocity Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect

We are taking over responsibility for the journal at a particularly unique moment in time. As the Responsibility to Protect (r2p) approaches its 20th anniversary, it has a very mixed record. On the one hand, thanks to tools like the United Nations (UN) Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes² and the European Union’s Atrocity Prevention Toolkit,³ the international community is able to predict potential atrocity situations. The tools available to prevent and respond to atrocities are also better understood,⁴ and so are the responsibilities and roles of key actors, such as the international community, regional organisations, and states.⁵

On the other hand, while r2p was the international community’s response to protection failures and atrocity crimes in the 1990s in places like Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Kosovo, 20 years after its creation, the world is once again experiencing a spike in atrocities. For instance, in 2020, conflict broke out in Ethiopia and all parties to the conflict have engaged in human rights violations, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.⁶ In 2021, Myanmar’s military seized power and crushed the responding civilian protests while continuing to commit atrocities against the Rohingya minority.⁷ A year later, Russia – a member of the UN Security Council – invaded its sovereign neighbour Ukraine, committing war crimes against the Ukrainian population in the process.⁸ In 2023, a terrorist attack by Hamas killed over 1,200 Israelis. The Israeli military operations that followed in Gaza have led to 42,000 deaths and 96,000 casualties⁹ and the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, has argued that ‘there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating that Israel has committed genocide has been met’.¹⁰ In another report published in October 2024, she also warned that ‘violence has spread beyond Gaza, with Israeli forces and violent settlers having escalated patterns of ethnic cleansing and apartheid in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem’.¹¹ The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect also argues that further atrocities are currently ongoing in Afghanistan, Central Sahel, China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela.¹²

The latest UN Secretary-General Report on r2p has tried to offer answers as to why atrocities are ongoing despite a pledge to ‘never again’ at the 2005 World Summit. It states that ‘the problem is not the commitment to the responsibility to protect in itself, but rather what the concrete implementation of that commitment entails in practice’. It indeed points out that prevention should take place sooner, ‘before risk factors emerge’; that ‘a better understanding of atrocity crimes is needed’; that discussions about atrocity situations often take place too late; and that ‘priority is not sufficiently given to the protection of vulnerable groups’.¹³

While these four points are true, the statement that ‘the problem is not the commitment to the responsibility to protect in itself’ is optimistic at best. r2p’s first two pillars – which claim that states have a responsibility to protect their own populations and that the international community has a responsibility to assist – are fairly widely accepted. However, the same cannot be said about its third pillar – which states that the international community should respond in ‘timely and decisive’ manner if a state is ‘manifestly failing’ to meet its protection responsibilities.¹⁴ This is particularly true since the controversial international intervention that took place in Libya in 2011 and the misuse of r2p to justify interventions in Georgia and Ukraine.¹⁵ Divisions over what pillar three should involve has made r2p an unpopular, and some would even argue ‘toxic’, concept at international forums such as the UN Security Council and in many domestic polities.

As a result, some scholars have questioned, both on the pages of this journal and elsewhere, if the time for r2p has come and gone.¹⁶ It would be misguided to dismiss how imperfect, and at times deeply problematic, r2p is. That being said, the norm underpinning r2p – atrocity prevention – remains one of the most developed and useful frameworks available to the international community when it comes to human protection. Additionally, the presence of atrocities is proof of the continued need to explore, articulate, revise and reinforce atrocity prevention, and the norms, laws, and values associated with it. Our aim is therefore to acknowledge and embrace this complexity and foster scholarship that takes these debates further and advances atrocity prevention – and the associated agendas – both conceptually and practically.

2 What to Expect from gr2p?

Since its creation, and thanks to the two outstanding previous editorial teams – Alex Bellamy, Sara Davies, Luke Glanville (2009–2019) and Adrian Gallagher, Charles Hunt, and Cecilia Jacob (2020–2024) – gr2p has produced high-quality and high-impact scholarship. Over the years, the scope of research of the journal has been expanded to cover not just r2p but issues directly relevant to the principle such as human protection, ethics, human rights, and global governance.

Additionally, the journal has become more diverse in terms of both authors and content. In particular, gr2p supports submissions and special editions by female, Global South, and early career authors. As part of this, the journal established the Edward C. Luck Prize for Research Excellence by a doctoral student or early career researcher. The journal also embraces new types of content beyond typical research articles, which allow practitioners and policy-makers to add their perspectives to scholarly debates.

Over the next few years, we – as the Editors – intend to follow in these footsteps; ensuring that gr2p does not shy away from the complex and fraught discussions emerging around r2p.

Our vision for gr2p is as follows:

Remit: We will keep adopting a broad scope and welcome contributions on themes and topics which include, but are not limited to genocide and mass atrocities; atrocity prevention, collective action to prevent atrocities; sovereignty; international organisations; regional organisations; conflict prevention; conflict resolution; peace operations; peacekeeping; peacemaking; peacebuilding; statebuilding; humanitarianism; humanitarian intervention; refugees and internally displaced persons; sexual violence and gender; human rights; global governance; capacity building; accountability; transitional justice; international law; diplomacy; ethics and law of armed conflict. In light of the political realities of r2p mentioned above, we will keep embracing submissions that engage critically with r2p and its associated debates. We will also seek out submissions that focus explicitly on fostering prevention and protection of mass atrocity crimes and other systematic, large scale human rights violations and submissions that address rebuilding after such events.

Research quality and innovation: We will seek to sustain and foster the journal’s commitment to high-quality and cutting-edge research that bridges the scholar-practitioner divide. We want to encourage contributions that are grounded in theoretical innovation and/or empirical contributions and want to hear from academics but also leading practitioners, and people impacted by atrocities and conflict. We will do so by encouraging four types of submissions:

1. 1)Research articles advancing a theoretically informed and sustained argument, based on solid evidence and contributing to new insights or perspectives on themes of direct relevance to the scope of the journal. In addition to welcoming unsolicited submissions, we plan on proactively identifying and supporting new and emerging scholarship.
2. 2)Interventions to allow discussions of debates or events of a timely nature. Interventions are short-form essays that aim to allow discussions of debates or events of a timely nature. They will traditionally be topical, practice-informed pieces that introduce new perspectives and policy-relevant insights.
3. 3)Special issues to offer multiple perspective on an important theme. We strongly encourage proposals that include contributors from different genders, career stages, and under-represented backgrounds.
4. 4)Book reviews to discuss the latest research available. Book reviews may also be published as a forum where 3–4 reviews of the same book are presented in dialogue with each other and with a response from the book author.

Diversity: We are committed to continuing the work of the previous editorial teams in ensuring that gr2p continues to be an outlet for diverse voices and perspectives on r2p and issues surrounding it. Alongside epistemological and ontological diversity, we place particular emphasis on geographical and gender diversity (on the latter, we are particularly proud of the fact that for the first time in gr2p’s history, the team will be led by three women). In an effort to maintain and deepen gr2p’s diversity, we will take extra steps to support authors from underrepresented groups in getting their submission successfully through the peer review process.

Now, perhaps more than ever, diverse voices and different perspectives on civilian protection and mass atrocity situations, alongside rigorous research and debate, are needed to address the multiple humanitarian crises around the world. Under our leadership, gr2p will continue serving as the leading outlet for such scholarship.