This Policy Guide seeks to enhance the ability of policy makers and practitioners – in governments, regional and international organizations, and civil society – to strengthen their efforts to protect civilians from conflict-related grave harm and mass atrocity crimes.

The Guide clarifies and compares the twin principles of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the Protection of Civilians (POC) in their normative, institutional and operational dimensions, distinguishes the principles’ different actors and methods, and specifies the situations when the two principles converge for specific actors and organizations.

2012-Policy-Guide-POC-R2P