In recent years, there has been an upsurge in the number of civilian resistance movements (CRMs) within states to counter government repression and coups d’états through which civilians are on the frontlines of state brutality and mass atrocities. This article considers the implications of CRMs for atrocity prevention and the associated responsibility to protect norm by asking, Should the international community support CRMs as part of its wider commitment to ending mass atrocities? In this article, we evaluate both military and nonmilitary support to CRMs. We argue that in the context of coups and government repression, providing lethal military support to CRMs will often make things worse in terms of atrocity prevention. We however explain that the provision by the international community of nonlethal and nonmilitary support through political recognition, technical assistance, and accountability can yield positive results. We illustrate this argument with the case of Myanmar.

The significant link between human rights violations and the eventual outbreak of atrocity crimes has been widely promoted across the UN system. However, the question of how the connection between the R2P norm and human rights plays out in the actual practices and debates of the UN Security Council has been relatively under explored. In response, the article builds on constructivist research into norm robustness in order to trace how the R2P's shift to an atrocity prevention focus has generated increased applicatory contestation over the push to expand the link between human rights and threats to international peace and security. Based on extensive analysis of UN Security Council meeting records and three case studies, the article highlights two competing ideological frames that currently divide the Security Council's approach to atrocity prevention. This division has emphasised a key disconnect between the work of the Security Council and other UN institutions such as the Human Rights Council, therefore severely limiting the potential for effective atrocity prevention responses. Thus, without a stronger connection to human rights in the process of threat identification, the R2P norm will remain considerably limited as a prevention tool. Consequently, the article also contributes to a new understanding of the critical role evolving institutional rules and practices play in state attempts to both constrain and reshape human protection norms.

In an article titled “Reforming the Security Council through a Code of Conduct: A Sisyphean Task?” (Ethics & International Affairs 32, no. 4, pp. 463–82), Bolarinwa Adediran argues that efforts to establish a code of conduct at the UN Security Council amount to energy misspent—for reasons both of practicability and effectiveness. While it is true that the proposed codes of conduct do not offer any shortcuts or magic answers to the dilemmas surrounding efforts to prevent atrocity crimes and protect populations, I disagree with the assessment that these initiatives will ultimately prove to be “unhelpful.” I examine the initiatives on three levels of analysis: (1) their effect on political and normative movement toward giving increased attention to human security considerations, (2) their effect on Security Council decision-making, and (3) their effect on atrocity prevention and protection on the ground. The proposed codes have both downside risks and upside potential on all three levels, but it is on the first level that my assessment most sharply diverges from that of Adediran.