Assessing the Responsibility to Protect: moving from theory to practice

In his recent article on the Responsibility to Protect – a political commitment to prevent atrocities – Matt Sleat argued it would be wrong to assess its success solely on how far it conforms to moral principles, while ignoring the difficult political circumstances in which relevant decisions are made. Here, Graham Harrison writes that conceptualising the Responsibility to Protect politically is not enough; instead, we must also be able to analyse it as a political practice.