Where is R2P grounded in international law? Anne-Marie Judson A ...

state is bound to ensure that local legislation is changed, amended and or reviewed to
nullify any laws that endorse racial discrimination of any kind. This extended to being
responsible for the implementation of its provisions into local education as well as
educating the citizens on the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations declaration on the Elimination
of all forms of Racial Discrimination. This indicated that the responsibility of each
state went further than acknowledging or signing a treaty in international law.
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) further
emphasized the responsibilities of states without discrimination as to race, colour, sex,
language, religion, political or other opinions including national or social origin. This
protection extended into the work place, the home and the social and economic
circumstances including the right to minimum wages, equal opportunity and special
privileges to women and children. This Covenant emphasized the responsibility of the
state to ensure that the underlying causes of conflict were prevented. The duties of the
state were to ensure that economic problems were resolved quickly so that economic
production and food distribution did not create future grievances. This went beyond
grave crimes and it showed how covenants could be used as prevention tools to
prevent individual grievances turning into collective grievances.
The crime of genocide was well grounded in several international frameworks. These
included the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide (1948), the Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1951) showing that the Genocide Convention
was binding on all states even without any conventional obligation. The legality of the
threat of Use of the Nuclear Weapons case also pointed out that the Genocide Convention
would be applicable if recourse to nuclear weapons entailed the element of intent to
destroy members of a group. This reinforced the responsibility of each state to protect
its civilians from genocide under the World Summit outcome document (2005)
paragraph 138. The Rome Statute again reinforced these provisions.
War crimes were shown to have the most comprehensive provisions for the protection
of civilians, wounded soldiers, women and children during a time of conflict either in
a non-international or international conflict. The Geneva Conventions explored the
responsibilities of the state in relation to humanitarian law. Crimes against humanity
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