
Accountability and Human Protection
The Challenges of a New Global Order
Cecilia Jacob(Author)
Oxford University Press
Will be published approx. on 17. September 2026
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-0-19-790958-4 (ISBN)
Description
In recent years, the world's most pressing conflicts have prompted a series of diverse international legal efforts to advance accountability for mass atrocities. Accountability and Human Protection argues that a transformation in the international accountability landscape is underway. This transformation is shaped both by the humanization of international law in recent decades, and new ways of operationalising international law amid human protection crises. This book describes the consolidation of an International Human Protection Order, in which a diverse global community of practice has propelled new practices and configurations of accountability processes. It shows how these actors, drawing on new practices and learning across conflicts, are activating accountability mechanisms at increasingly early phases of conflict escalation. These are aimed at offering protection for civilians amid real-time crises, challenging traditional notions of post-war accountability in the wake of major conflict.
The book offers a novel theorization of the International Human Protection Order, showing the move from international lawmaking to international legal ordering over time. It provides a historical tracing of the convergence of international law aimed at protecting humanity, including the turn to a distinctive emphasis on atrocities over aggression. It shows how the atrocity paradigm has shaped political doctrines of protection, and efforts to reform the Security Council working methods at the turn of the twenty-first century. It then traces the implementation of the IHPO across four conflicts that have catalysed a more radical transformation of accountability practices in recent years: Syria, Myanmar, Ukraine, and Israel/Gaza. The book concludes with a critical reflection on the implications of the IHPO for international justice, and the limits of accountability for protection in a moment of international political turmoil.
The book offers a novel theorization of the International Human Protection Order, showing the move from international lawmaking to international legal ordering over time. It provides a historical tracing of the convergence of international law aimed at protecting humanity, including the turn to a distinctive emphasis on atrocities over aggression. It shows how the atrocity paradigm has shaped political doctrines of protection, and efforts to reform the Security Council working methods at the turn of the twenty-first century. It then traces the implementation of the IHPO across four conflicts that have catalysed a more radical transformation of accountability practices in recent years: Syria, Myanmar, Ukraine, and Israel/Gaza. The book concludes with a critical reflection on the implications of the IHPO for international justice, and the limits of accountability for protection in a moment of international political turmoil.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-19-790958-4 (9780197909584)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Cecilia Jacob is an Associate Professor of International Relations and Associate Dean for Research at The Australian National University. She has published widely on international norms of civilian protection and mass atrocity prevention. She was an Australian Research Council Fellow from 2020-2024 and has held visiting appointments at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, the Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict at the University of Oxford, and the Ralph Bunch Institute, City University of New York. She advises governments and has consulted for UN and humanitarian agencies on atrocity and conflict-related policy.
Author
Associate Professor, Department of International RelationsAssociate Professor, Department of International Relations, The Australian National University
Content
- Introduction: A Day of Reckoning: Human Protection in an Age of Accountability
- Part I. Theory and History of the International Human Protection Order
- 1: Theorizing the IHPO
- 2: Historicizing the IHPO
- Part II. Institutionalization of the IHPO: The Accountability-Protection Nexus
- 3: Institutionalizing the IHPO: The Effects of Convergence on International Protection
- 4: 'As the sky darkens': Atrocitizing International Justice
- Part III. The IHPO in Practice
- 5: Outsourcing Protection to Accountability
- 6: Swift Accountability and Demise of Protection in Ukraine and Gaza
- Conclusion: The Outer Limit of Justice: The Rise (and Fall?) and the Future of the IHPO