The Study of Diffusion and Practice of International Norms through the “ Human Security ” : The Case of “ Responsibility to Protect

Power and national interest constitute an important research topic in the study of international politics, and can be seen as the starting point for the study of international relations in the post-war period. A number of scholars have asserted that “power” determines “national interest.” Such a view, however, can result in an excessively restricted understanding of “national behavior,” since the relationship between contemporary international politics and national behavior is not necessarily an ironclad one. This has been borne out by a number of international efforts to maintain peace in the post-Cold War era. Rather than being driven by national interests or regional strategic concerns, a number of military interventions have been carried out in order to prevent ethnic cleansing, safeguard human rights, and uphold certain other values of the international society. Such international values are based on respect for human dignity, the rule of law, and the ideal of democracy. These values are based on norms restricting the use of power and emphasize that the effective use of power is based on legitimacy. In this paper, I would like to explore some of the ideas from which these norms are derived. Therefore, the paper presents a new method of interpretation for human security by the theory of Constructivism, and meantime the main purpose of this paper is exploring a brief discussion of how a people-centered approach to international norms is currently being implemented and practiced by the international society. This is evidenced by the way in which the concept of human security has developed since it was put forth by the United Nations in 1994. And its more positive normative turning is the case of “R2P”.


Introduction
Power and national interest constitute an important research topic in the study of international politics, and can be seen as the starting point for the study of international relations in the post-war period.A number of scholars have asserted that "power" determines "national interest."Such a view, however, can result in an excessively restricted understanding of "national behavior," since the relationship between contemporary international politics and national behavior is not necessarily an ironclad one.This has been borne out by a number of international efforts to maintain peace in the post-Cold War era.Rather than being driven by national interests or regional strategic concerns, a number of military interventions have been carried out in order to prevent ethnic cleansing, safeguard human rights, and uphold certain other values of the international society.Martha Finnemore thinks that some kind of political order in Somalia, Cambodia, and Bosnia are all instances of military action whose primary goal is not territorial or strategic but humanitarian (Finnemore, 1996).Such international values are based on respect for human dignity, the rule of law, and the ideal of democracy.These values are based on norms restricting the use of power and emphasize that the effective use of power is based on legitimacy (Katzenstein, 1996).In this paper, I would like to explore some of the ideas from which these norms are derived.
Most states focus their attention on such areas as political structures, material factors of state, and the balance of power.Some states, however, are more concerned with upholding the values of the international society, applying certain principles to the formulation of international norms, and promoting the common good throughout the world.The Vatican, for example, is not a powerful country by conventional standards.In the areas of religion and spirituality, however, the Vatican is a kind of super power, albeit its norms and values are different from those of America and Russia.
Therefore, the paper looks at a new method of interpretation for human security by the theory of Constructivism, and meantime the main purpose of this paper is exploring a brief discussion of how a people-centered approach to international norms is currently being implemented and practiced by the international society.This is evidenced by the way in which the concept of human security has developed since it was put forth by the United Nations in 1994.And its more positive normative turning is the case of "R2P".

The Connotation of Human Security
In 1994, the United Nations Development Program published the Human Development Report (HDR), which symbolizes a new way of thinking, a new milestone, as well as the integration of security issues under globalization.This report developed this definition in relation to seven dimensions of human security: personal, environmental, economic, political, community, health, and food security (UNDP, 1994, pp. 24-25).Besides, the report adopted "people-centered" security concept as the center of focus instead of the traditional concept of state-centered (UNDP, 1994, pp. 24-33).The appearance of human security, a representation of the emergence of a new security paradigm, supplements the concept of traditional security issues.Human security emphasizes the people's surrounding rights and interests, which are ignored by the international society in the daily life.The so-called security should entail the protection of peoples' benefits, which does not be threatened by diseases, hungers, unemployment, political oppressions and environmental degradation.
The end of the Cold War gave way to Globalization which has fundamentally changed many existing paradigms in the Social Sciences.New Idea such as human security has emerged in the modern globalised era.Indeed, human security has become somewhat of a buzzword.Even UN and Countries like Canada and Japan have proclaimed it as the guiding principle of their foreign policies.Over a period of ten years, the concept of human security has begun visibly to influence, change, and challenge global politics, institutions, and governance (Oberleitner, 2005, p. 185).It reflects a kind of all-round, multi-level and wide-ranging security concept, and accommodates the traditional and non-traditional security elements.
The HDR adds that the concept of human security must focus on four of its core characteristics.First, "human security is a universal concern.It is relevant to people everywhere, in rich nations and poor…..Their intensity may differ from one part of the world to another, but all these threats to human security are real and growing."(UNDP, 1994, pp. 22-23).Second, "the components of human security are interdependent…."Third, "human security is easier to ensure through early prevention than later intervention.It is less costly to meet these threats upstream than downstream."Fourth, "human security is people-centered.It is concerned with how people live and breathe in a society, how freely they exercise their many choices, how much access they have to market and social opportunities and whether they live in conflict or in peace."(UNDP, 1994, pp. 22-23).
A brief description of the concepts of human security, this paper tries to interpret the relationship between human security and constructivism.Because both of them not only reflect the social relations of human beings have a re-interpretation, but also a shift of the norms and power international society.Especially, constructivist theorizing in international relations defines a norm as the existence of shared understanding as to the permissible limits of state action (Wheeler, 2006, p. 30).In view of this, adopting constructivism as a research approach to explore human security, thus, six observations are as follows: 2.1 All knowledge is composed of social structure, which guides to the nature of knowledge and social significance.Both of them rely on the human perception, and it decides all actions of human beings (Onuf, 1989;Kowert & Onuf, 1998).When human beings feel threats, the "human-centered" concept of the human security shapes gradually and through a series of the multi-national, independent commission of experts, academics, intellectuals and academic reports initiative, the concept of the human security is built.For example, NGOs and civil society in general play a major role in the study of, and advocacy on, human security concerns.They are involved in practically all human security issues (Sané, 2008, pp. 5-6).Over the years, the collective efforts of various ad hoc campaigns have led to the signing of the 1997 Ottawa Convention which banned anti-personal landmines, and the creation of the International Criminal Court in 1998 (Tadjbakhsh, 2007, p. 23).

2.2
The emergence of the concept of human security reflects the influence of values and norms on security studies, as opposed to the influence of national security.This also demonstrates a change in international relations, identities and interests, and is best explained with reference to constructivist thought.Tadjbakhsh considers that human security can thus be read as an attempt to reconstruct the interpretation of the roots of insecurity, underdevelopment, and poverty.These same themes have also been examined by constructivism (Tadjbakhsh, 2007, pp. 88-89).

2.3
Human security is a new language and a new symbol.Because language constitutes social facts, any fact entails the element of language.Language constitutes the consensus, which generates the collective image, and further forms institutions and norms.The concept of human security derives from the use of language, images and symbols.For instance, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) (ICISS, 2002) -reflecting Kofi Annan's remark that the language of intervention needs to be changed from the right or duty to intervene, to the responsibility to protect-shifted the focus to those in need of support.It also asked the UN Security Council to face up to the consequences of inaction: increasing inappropriate intervention by states or ad hoc coalitions which would threaten the legitimacy and credibility of the UN (Tadjbakhsh, 2007;MacFarlane & Khong, 2006;Kaldor, 2007).

2.4
As an idea shaping of the concept of human security, constructivism believes that national interests are forged in the process of mutual interaction.The process determines the interests and identity, and the identity constitutes the interests.During the process, the value of human security is established when states transfer their attention to common interests.A case in point is the way in which human security is being promoted by the Canadian and Norwegian governments as a new guideline in foreign policy following a bilateral meeting in Norway of foreign ministers Lloyd Axworthy and Knut Vollebaek in May 1998.Both governments have used the term as an umbrella concept to cover a humanitarian agenda that includes support for the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the ban on landmines, and a prohibition on child soldiers and small arms (Suhrke, 1999, p. 265-266;Krause, 2008, p. 76).

2.5
Since they are constructed out of concepts, identity and interests are neither unchanging nor endless, and vary with the emergence of new issues and concepts.This can be seen as a revision of human security, raising questions concerning political economy, sovereign states, and political community (Newman, 2001, p. 247).When people start to think of common interests, the definition of security will become "people-centered."On the one hand, there is the conviction that states are responsible for regulating the actions of its individual citizens, and on the other hand, individuals are responsible for violating international human rights and humanitarian law (Benedek, 2008, p. 8).The ICC demonstrates that the international community has long aspired to create a permanent international court, and in the 20th century it reached consensus on definitions of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

2.6
In the 1990s, realism and liberalism were criticized for their overemphasis on material concerns and for failing to take into account subjective, psychological, and human elements.Constructivism attempts to challenge established world views which have been set in place by material concerns (Wendt, 1992, pp. 391-425).Constructivism and human security have much in common, and human security can be seen as an application of the tenets of constructivism.Constructivism reinterprets traditional material, state-centric society; similarly human security reinterprets traditional theories of military force and national security.
During the process of security research, human security is paid attention to and also a thinking, which humans rely on the instinct.Human security means safety from chronic threats such as hunger, disease and repression, but also must include protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the pattern of daily life.The concept has led to a shift from security through armament to security through sustainable human development (Frerks and Goldewijk, 2007, p. 27).It not only attempts to offer a blueprint to solve the problems of human beings, but also a path for the states of middle power to practice it (Pairs, 2001, p. 88).After a brief description of the connotation of human security, this paper attempts to interpret the norms and practices of people-centered prevailing in international society.These norms and practices of people-centered reflect human beings as subjects of international law and international relations was, in some measure, a response to the evolving quality of the relationship between the state and the individual.

The Implementation and Promotion of People-centered International Norms
"The state remains the fundamental purveyor of security.Yet it often fails to fulfill its security obligations….That is why attention must now shift from the security of the state to the security of the people-to human security." -Commission on Human Security, 2003 In the 16 th century the scholar of international law Francisco Suarez (1548-1617) stated, "Although human beings are divided into many different nation-states, from a larger perspective they constitute a unity.Surface appearances may give the impression that each country is a fully independent and self-sufficient entity, but in reality this in not possible, for every nation requires the support and cooperation of other nations.Even more important is the implementation of common laws for regulating their interactions."(Eppstein, 1935, pp. 265-266).The paper emphasizes that such collective legal norms are based on the "respect for the individual" espoused by the international society.Due to the changes brought about by globalization, human relations are becoming increasingly complex, resulting in the appearance of new concepts and norms, and making it necessary for nations to establish new approaches to legitimating their use of power.This paper would like to contend that this phenomenon is based on the increasing importance of the concept of the "people-centered." The concept of human security has its origins in the high regard human beings have for the individual.Over the course of time this idea has been studied, promoted, and put into practice in the arena of international relations (Tsai and Tan, 2008, pp. 151-153).At present, largely due to the changes brought about by globalization, it has already become a relatively concrete element of the concept of security.The term "human security" was adopted by the UN in 1994 and has already been widely acknowledged by the international society (UN, 1998).Still, only after being clarified and accepted over a certain amount of time can a concept such as this become a norm which can be incorporated into national policies.For example, on the national level, the Canadian activities and leadership in human security as well as the position of the Japanese government provide an experimental ground for human security as a foreign policy tool (Banks, 2001).In other words, the collective acknowledgement of this sort of people-centered model originates in the establishment of the "idea" of human rights in a given nation or civil society.Human security has also been taken up by civil society organizations and has led to the creation of civil society networks, bringing together otherwise nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).The Coalition for the International Criminal Court and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines are two examples.More recently, the African Human Security Initiative has drawn together African NGOs with the aim of assessing the human security performance of African governments.Human security is also increasingly used by national NGOs to bring together single-issue concerns and thereby create a holistic framework for action (Oberleitner, 2005, pp. 185-203).
In 1996, Canada had been developing a human security focus in its foreign policy and had attempted to lead a multinational force to protect refugee camps in eastern Zaire (MacFarlane, 2000, pp. 57-58).Especially, at the time of Canada's election to the Security Council of UN, its Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade held an internal strategy debate to discuss what the country's priorities should be during its tenure.Most of the suggestions were related to human security and decided to embrace protection of civilians in war as the central theme of Canada's term (MacFarlane and Khong, 2006, p. 174).
Moreover, human security and human rights complement one another.For the most part, the safeguarding of human rights is carried out by making use of legal institutions and norms, while human security is brought about through the implementation of economic, political, or even military measures.In recent years, both of these have received increasing attention from the international society, and at present there are several examples of how the concept of human security can be used to formulate norms, bring about positive change, and maintain peace (Cockell, 2000, p. 21).Amongst these are the Ottawa Convention, ratified in 1997; the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security, set up in New York in 1999 under the aegis of the government of Japan; the Human Security Network (HSN) established by Canada and 11 other countries in 1999; and the Commission on Human Security (CHS), established in New York in 2001 (Takasu, 2000).
In particular, the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002 and the Human Rights Council (HRC) in 2006 represented a certain transformation in the concept of human rights, whereby an increased respect for human rights has led to their practical implementation in various institutions.One result of all this has been the formulation of a number of non-legally binding appeals by these institutions in cooperation with the UN.After some time, these can be converted into articles and institutions which have the force of law.

The Responsibility to Protect: A New Approach to International Norms
During the 1990s there was a fundamental change in the norms governing the behavior of the states and international organizations.NATO's intervention in Kosovo in 1999 brought the controversy to its most intense head.Security Council members were divided; the legal justification for military action without new Security Council authority was asserted but largely unargued; the moral or humanitarian justification for the action, which on the face of it was much stronger, was clouded by allegations that the intervention generated more carnage than it averted; and there were many criticisms of the way in which the NATO allies conducted the operation.At the United Nations General Assembly in 1999, and again in 2000, Secretary-General Kofi Annan made compelling pleas to the international society trying to find a new consensus on how to approach these issues, to "forge unity" around the basic questions of principle and process involved.He posed the central question starkly and directly (ICISS, 2001;MacFarlane and Khong, 2006, p. 161;Kaldor, 2007, p. 17): If humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica -to gross and systematic violations of human rights that affect every precept of our common humanity?
Following up on his challenge, in March 2000, the Secretary-General asked a panel of international experts led by adviser Lakhdar Brahimi to improve UN peace operations.The resulting Report of the Panel on UN Peace Operations (Brahimi Report) offered advice about minimum requirements for UN peacekeeping mission (Mertus, 2005, p. 125).Meantime, it was also in response to this challenge; in 2000, the Canadian government announced the establishment of an independent body called the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS).Then in September 2001 the ICISS issued a report titled The Responsibility to Protect, giving rise to considerable discussion in the international society.Commonly referred to as "R2P," the central argument of this report is that each country is responsible for safeguarding its citizenry from disasters, massacres, and famines (Pace and Deller, 2005, pp. 15-32).If a country is unable to do this, then the responsibility falls to the international society.The virtue of R2P was that it would entice states to engage in humanitarian relief by changing the emphasis from the politically unpleasant right of state interveners, to the less threatening idea of responsibility (Alston and Macdonald, 2007, p. 275).In view of this, promoting "R2P" as international norms to explore a people-centered approach, thus, some core principles are as follows (Pace and Deller, 2005, pp. 15-32):

Basic Principles
(A)State sovereignty implies responsibility, and the primary responsibility for the protection of its people lies with the state itself.
(B)Where a population is suffering serious harm, as a result of internal war, insurgency, repression or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert it, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect.

Foundations
The foundations of the responsibility to protect, as a guiding principle for the international society of states, lie in: (A)obligations inherent in the concept of sovereignty; (B)the responsibility of the Security Council, under Article 24 of the UN Charter, for the maintenance of international peace and security; (C)specific legal obligations under human rights and human protection declarations, covenants and treaties, international humanitarian law and national law; (D)the developing practice of states, regional organizations and the Security Council itself.

Right Authority
(A)There is no better or more appropriate body than the United Nations Security Council to authorize military intervention for human protection purposes.The task is not to find alternatives to the Security Council as a source of authority, but to make the Security Council work better than it has.
(B)Security Council authorization should in all cases be sought prior to any military intervention action being carried out.Those calling for an intervention should formally request such authorization, or have the Council raise the matter on its own initiative, or have the Secretary-General raise it under Article 99 of the UN Charter.
(C)The Permanent Five members of the Security Council should agree not to apply their veto power, in matters where their vital state interests are not involved, to obstruct the passage of resolutions authorizing military intervention for human protection purposes for which there is otherwise majority support.
(D)If the Security Council rejects a proposal or fails to deal with it in a reasonable time, alternative options are consideration of the matter by the General Assembly in Emergency Special Session under the "Uniting for Peace" procedure; and action within area of jurisdiction by regional or sub-regional organizations under Chapter VIII of the Charter, subject to their seeking subsequent authorization from the Security Council.
To sum up the above points of view, we can analyze that states do not have unqualified rights to non-intervention by other states, but rather the right is conditioned on state meeting its own responsibility to protect its citizen.Failure to accept responsibility to protect the safety of citizens opens states to the possibility of intervention; therefore, sovereignty is contingent on the promotion and protection of human rights and can be suspended (Hehir, 2008, pp. 48-52).Besides, the Responsibility to Protect reveals the matters of human rights in UN system have usually been regarded as matters for United Nations Economic and Social Council, specialized agencies, and subsidiary organs such as the Human Rights Commission.The UN Charter affirms a principle of noninterference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state; it also offers the achievement of international cooperation in promoting human rights (see Charter of the United Nations, art.2.7, Preamble).But the Charter offers no guidance about when sovereignty must yield to protection against the violations, against genocide, ethnic cleansing, and massive human rights abuses.However, the current practice regarding the responsibility to protect suggests that the Security Council has begun to play an important role in the issues regarding the international protection of human rights (Matsukuma, 2005, pp. 106-118).In the meantime, the focus of "R2P" is on just cause and right authority.Those proposed by the Canadian International Commission on Intervention and Sovereignty are drawn from Just War approaches and cover the criteria for right authority, including the importance of multilateral authorization, and the right to intervene in cases of large-scale loss of life and ethnic cleansing (Boer and Wilde, 2008, p. 36).

R2P: A Normative Shift in the International Society
This ICISS report was enthusiastically received by the UK, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the European Union, Rwanda, and Kenya.At the 2005 UN Summit over 150 national governments gave clear expression to their support for R2P by drafting a statement asserting that each country is responsible for protecting its citizenry from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing.Furthermore, each country agreed that collective action by the UN Security Council according to Article 24 of the UN Charter should be used to prevent such crimes (Alston and Macdonald, 2007).The report was a landmark in the evolution of human value, designed to address the key political debates, legal issues, and operative obstacles.First, ICISS tried to de-politicize the North-South argument and shift the focus from a "right to intervene" to a "responsibility to protect" (Banda, 2007).Second, the report emphasizes the essence of R2P is that sovereignty implies responsibility.Sovereignty can no longer be used to shield gross violations of the security of people from international action (MacFarlane and Khong, 2006, p. 166).Third, the report concludes on the basis of international customary law, human rights treaties, as well as growing state practice and the Council's precedent-setting resolutions that R2P was an "emerging principle" of law (Alston and Macdonald, 2007).
R2P can be seen as an augmentation of the UN provisions for peacekeeping operations (Neack, 2007, pp. 191-218).At the same time, from the perspective of security research, R2P brings together human security and national security (Neack, 2007, p. 209).Based on the traditional concept of national sovereignty, according to R2P, protecting its citizenry is part and parcel of what it means to be a sovereign state.Yet the end of the Cold War and the advent of globalization have led to certain changes in the concept of security.In an age when armed hostilities take such diverse forms as civil wars, insurgencies, and the general chaos of a failed state (Tsai and Tan, 2008), those responsible for various atrocities are often those who hold the reins of power.Thus the international society would like to see the principle of non-intervention in a sovereign state give way to the duty to protect.As an emerging international norm, R2P emphasizes a concerted series of actions, including prevention, response, and rebuilding (Neack, 2007, pp. 210-212).
By asserting the right to intervene, R2P constitutes a transformation of the forms intervention can take (MacFarlane and Khong, 2006, 191).This represents a shifting of the terms of debate (ICISS, 2002, pp. 16-17), as well as a change in the forms discursive power can take.United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his report to the 2000 General Assembly, challenged the international society trying to forge consensus, once and for all, around the basic questions of principle and process involved: when should intervention occur, under whose authority, and how.The independent International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty was established by the Government of Canada in September 2000 to respond to that challenge (MacFarlane and Khong, 2006, p. 161).
In traditional international politics the debate on intervention has centered on the concepts of the right of humanitarian intervention and the right to intervene.As a result, the international society has been overly focused on the intervention operation itself, without giving due consideration to prevention and rebuilding.Thus the emphasis of the ICISS is not so much on "the right to intervene" as on "the duty to protect," thereby changing the terminology in order to change the concept (MacFarlane and Khong, 2006, p. 161).Moreover, the purpose of ICISS in changing the wording is to highlight the importance of the duty to "prevent," "respond," and "rebuild" (MacFarlane and Khong, 2006, p. 193).It emphasizes the duty of each sovereign state to safeguard its own citizenry against certain crimes against humanity, and does so in accordance with the principle of "maintaining international peace and security" found in Article 24 of the UN Charter (Frerks and Goldewijk, 2007, p. 32).
Besides, on 12 January 2009, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a report entitled Implementing the Responsibility to Protect.The report is the first comprehensive document from the UN Secretariat on the Responsibility to Protect, following Ban's stated commitment to turn the concept into policy (See R2P Report).The Secretary General's Report sets the tone and the direction for the discussion on the subject at the UN.The Report proposes a terminological framework for understanding the "Responsibility to Protect" and outlines measures and actors involved in implementing the approach of three pillars.The three pillars are: Pillar one stresses that States have the main responsibility to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.Pillar two emphasizes the commitment of the international community to provide assistance to States in building capacity to protect their citizens from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and to assisting those which are under stress before crises and conflicts break out.Pillar three focuses on the responsibility of international community to take timely and action to prevent and halt genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity when a State is failing to protect its people (See R2P Report).
Importantly, the Secretary-General urges the General Assembly to consider the strategy for implementing R2P as prescribed in the report.It also gives a particular attention to early warning, and introduces specific recommendations regarding a future proposal to create a joint-office between the Special Adviser with a focus on the Responsibility to Protect and the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide (See R2P Report).Finally, on 14 September 2009, in the course of the closing plenary of its 63 rd session, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution A/63/L80 Rev. 1 entitled "The Responsibility to Protect."The short three paragraph resolution, co-sponsored by 67 states from the member of UN, was adopted and intended to continue to engage on the issue o f the responsibility to protect by consensus (See A/63/L80 Rev. 1).

Conclusion
Although the Westphalia System has remained intact for some 400 years, due to the influence of global interdependence in the contemporary world the concepts of human rights, humanitarianism, international law, and the norms of the international society have become exceedingly complex and sovereignty transformed.Some discussion demonstrated that global interdependencies and consolidation of a human rights discourse are transforming national sovereignty.For example, in the global context of fragmented power, other agents, private parties, NGOs, and transnational institutions play a growing role in the age of transforming national sovereignty.Another visible instance for the transformation of nation-state sovereignty is the use of force to engage in humanitarian intervention (Levy and Sznaider, 2006, pp. 668-669).In such a situation "rights" are no longer the highest authority for the formulation of ideals and principles.The Holocaust in Germany, the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the brutalities of the Pinochet regime in Chile, ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, and the massacre in Rwanda; all of these are blatant transgressions of universal human values.
In sum, R2P represents a normative shift in the international society (ICISS, 2002;Wheeler, 2000;Dannreuther, 2007, pp. 46-48).On the one hand, R2P is sometimes considered a "soft" security approach, relegated to the aftermath of conflicts.On the other hand, R2P should be regarded as a "hard" security policy aimed at protecting individuals rather than states.By emphasizing the connection between humanitarian intervention and human security, as well as by extending the meaning of human security (Tadjbakhsh and Chenoy, 2006, pp. 198-201), R2P gives each state the duty and responsibility to come to the assistance of anyone facing a catastrophe.It also hints a normative change that recognized human beings as subjects of international law and international relations was, in some measure, a response to the changing quality of threats to individual human beings and the evolving quality of the relationship between the state and the individual.In light of the Grotian tradition and the English School, the international system is a "society" in which states, as a condition of their participation in the system, adhere to share norms and rules in a variety of issue areas (Bull, 1977).In other words, material power matters, but within an approach of normative expectations embedded in public and customary international law.In view of this, the author attempts to explore a brief discussion of how a people-centered approach to international norms is currently being implemented and practiced by the international society.This attempt also expects to be the focus of future human security research and the main purpose of this paper.