Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.30925/zpfsr.47.2.6
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in the Era of Climate Change: Revisiting States’ Preventive Obligations
Petra Perišić
; University of Rijeka, Faculty of Law, Croatia
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* Corresponding author.
Abstract
This paper examines how climate change, as a risk multiplier, affects states’ obligations under the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). It analyzes the R2P doctrine to clarify its content and scope and to determine whether it encompasses climate change alongside the four core crimes – genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity – in situations of state failure to act. Having established that the concept should not be expanded beyond these four crimes, the paper proceeds to explore the ways in which climate change interacts with R2P. Drawing on the principle of systemic integration, it argues that this interaction operates at the level of interpretation of states’ legal obligations, which should be understood in light of relevant climate-related commitments. The paper concludes that the intersection between climate change and R2P does not give rise to new legal obligations but rather informs the interpretation of existing ones.
Keywords
Responsibility to Protect (R2P); mass atrocity crimes; climate change; prevention; systemic integration.
Hrčak ID:
350942
URI
Publication date:
15.9.2026.
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