The international responsibility to protect and norms of international criminal justice are increasingly contested. Recent conflicts seem to be casting doubt on the possibility of global governance. Are such liberal norms and rules only accepted in the political West? Two events in 2011 illustrate the problem: The African Union’s reaction to the implementation of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in Libya and the implementation of the Protection of Civilians (POC) norm in the Ivory Coast. Though both cases being engaged with the protection of individual rights of civilians, the African Union distanced itself only from the implementation of the R2P but not from the POC. The questions remain: When do Regional Security Organizations contribute to fragmenting the global order and when do they strengthen it? The study finds that the acceptance of global norms and rules is primarily a matter of procedural justice. Hence, regional security organizations will most likely support global security governance when they possess a fair degree of co-determination in the political process that affects their regions.
In PRIF Report No. 130 “Institutional Justice as a Condition for the Regional Acceptance of Global Order. The African Union and the Protection of Civilians”, Matthias Dembinski and Dirk Peters examine and analyze the relationship between global institutions and Regional Security Organizations while providing recommendations for political practice.
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