Human Rights and Humanitarian Norms, Strategic Framing, and Intervention: Lessons for the Responsibility to Protect

This book seeks to examine the effects of strategic framing in U.S. and UN policy arenas to draw conclusions regarding whether and how the human rights and humanitarian norms embedded within such frames resonated with decision-makers and, in turn, how they shaped variation in levels of political will concerning humanitarian intervention in three cases that today would qualify as Responsibility to Protect (R2P) cases: Somalia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone. Labonte concludes that in order for humanitarian interventions to stand a higher likelihood of being effective, states advocating in support of such actions must find a way to persuade policymakers by appealing to both the logic of consequences (which rely on material and pragmatic considerations) and logic of appropriateness (which rely on normatively appropriate considerations) – and strategic framing may be one path to achieve this outcome.

Offering a detailed and examination of three key cases and providing some an original and important contribution to the field this work will be of great interest to students and scholars alike.