Abstract | In this article I argue that the claims made about the efficacy of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) echo the pejorative conceptions of “utopianism” advanced by E. H. Carr and Ken Booth, in two ways: by virtue of RtoP’s supporter’s determination to claim “progress” in spite of countervailing empirical evidence, and the exaggerated importance supporters ascribe to institutionalization, which mistakenly conflates state support with a change in state behavior and interests. I argue that RtoP’s impact on the behavior of states has been, and will continue to be, limited and that while RtoP has garnered widespread support amongst states, this is due to it having been rendered largely impotent through a process of norm co-optation. While both Carr and Booth criticized a particular form of utopianism, I demonstrate that both also defended the articulation of normative prescriptions that are not immediately feasible; to this end, I conclude by suggesting a potential reform of the existing international legal order that meets Carr’s preference for normative thinking that is “utopian in the right sense”. |
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