The responsibility to rebuild in international law: a panacea for responsibility to protect?

Abstract

This thesis considers the issue of the Responsibility to Rebuild in International Law. It posits that the R2R must be re-elevated to significance as a conceptual, normative, and functional element of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), with its institutional homes in the United Nation’s framework and the Secretary-General’s function adequately articulated. In most instances, the 2009 three-pillar R2P framework functions effectively, but it has the flaw of burying and overlooking the critical value of the initial ICISS third pillar, the responsibility to rebuild and reconstruct war-ravaged communities’ threshold of viability and self-sufficiency. This thesis draws some crucial insight from the significant international interventions of the twenty-first century and recalling the scope in which R2P was first conceived to illustrate the unique characteristics of its contribution to global politics or international policy. This thesis addresses the question of who should rebuild after a war. The ‘Belligerents Rebuild Thesis,’ which suggests that those who have been engaged in the battle - including the victor, just belligerent, unjust aggressor, or humanitarian intervener - should be charged with the responsibility of rebuilding, is held by many leading proponents of the importance of jus post-Bellum for Just War Theory. On the other hand, this thesis argues that there is a mutual, international responsibility to rebuild that should be delegated solely based on the agent's capacity to rebuild rather than the belligerents.