Philosophy
Sovereignty as Responsibility in Humanitarian Intervention Debates
Quick fact
The phrase 'sovereignty as responsibility' was popularized by Francis Deng and Roberta Cohen in the 1990s, and it directly inspired the United Nations' 2005 endorsement of the Responsibility to Protect, which holds that sovereign states must shield their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.
Why this is interesting
For centuries, sovereignty meant a ruler's absolute power within borders. But what happens when that power is used against a country's own people?