A dead end or a new beginning?

As endorsed by states in the 2005 World Summit, the responsibility to protect doctrine primarily reaffirms the responsibility of states to protect their population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Secondary responsibility is on the international community to encourage and help States to exercise this responsibility and where states manifestly fail to protect their populations to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, to protect populations. This book will try to address the question of whether or not responsibility to protect, could be invoked when gross violations of economic, social and cultural rights that could amount to crimes against humanity are committed by active commission or deliberate omissions of states and would argue a case for the application of the responsibility to protect doctrine for such cases.