Dr Ricardo Soares de Oliveira awarded grant to study Global Norms on Responsibility to Protect

Congratulations toDr Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, the Global Public Policy Institute, and its partners, who have collectively been awarded a grant from the Volkswagen Foundation to study the evoution of global norms, particularly in relation to the idea of Responsibility to Protect.

Non-Western powers such as China, India, Brazil, Russia and South Africa (the BRICS) are joining or rejoining the ranks of major powers. After decades of accepting or resisting a normative order dominated by the Euro-Atlantic powers, they have begun to put forward their own ideas on the evolution of global norms. Their growing assertiveness adds to the contestation of global norms, which is likely to become the rule rather than the exception in the coming decades, as the world shifts toward a new normative order.

However, scholarship to date on global norms remains largely tied to Western-centric, unidirectional and linear-teleological models of norm diffusion and stops short of analyzing conflictive, non-linear interactions between increasingly assertive powers.

This project seeks to address this gap by providing a comprehensive, in-depth analysis of global norm evolution and normative conflict. It focuses on a crucial case: the evolution of a responsibility to protect individuals from mass atrocities. This emerging and contested norm challenges the foundations of the existing global order and has become the subject of intense global debate.

This grant will run from autumn, 2012 and will last for approximately three years.

You can read more about the Global Public Policy institute by clicking here.

You can also learn about the Volkswagen Foundation from here.