Abstract
This chapter focuses on the case of Afghanistan as an R2P concern. This war-torn country has been suffering from grave human rights violations as well as political and economic instability for decades. Although the R2P norm has not been invoked in the Afghan case, the comprehensive engagement of the international community in the country militarily, politically and financially along with the capacity-building measures carried out by the Afghan governments since 2001 reflect many aspects of R2P. Nevertheless, the Afghan population is still facing the threat of mass atrocity crimes. To understand the reasons as to why such threat continues to exist despite extensive international engagement, this chapter conducts a pillar-by-pillar analysis. It observes that the international community’s prioritisation of counterterrorism issues has side-lined its responsibility to protect and exacerbated the sufferings of the Afghan population due to the non-accountable use of force to strengthen the US war on terror since 2001. Accordingly, the chapter argues that unless R2P is internalised and embedded in national and international policies and measures, traditional security priorities will continue to compromise humanitarian priorities and objectives, hence result in failure to protect vulnerable populations even in cases where there is active engagement.
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Balkan-Şahin, S. (2022). Afghanistan: An R2P Concern. In: Gözen Ercan, P. (eds) The Responsibility to Protect Twenty Years On. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90731-0_10
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