Abstract

This article analyses various ways to articulate the ethical investigations of French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas with the doctrine of the responsibility to protect. In response to genocide and mass atrocity, an imperative to understand responsibility in a broader and more forceful way entails in both cases a new and analogous revision of the related concepts of identity and sovereignty. A basic complementarity of Levinas’ ethics with the responsibility to protect is ascertained: while Levinas’ ethical investigations can indeed bring a philosophical basis to the responsibility to protect, the latter can, in a limited way, be construed as practical policy implications of the former