Pillar I: The protection responsibilities of the state – "Each individual state has the responsibility to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity"
Pillar II: International assistance and capacity-building – States pledge to assist each other in their protection responsibilities
Pillar III: Timely and decisive collective response – If any state is "manifestly failing" in its protection responsibilities, then states should take collective action to protect the population.[9][10]
While there is agreement among states about the responsibility to protect, there is persistent contestation about the applicability of the third pillar in practice.[9] The responsibility to protect provides a framework for employing measures that already exist (i.e., mediation, early warning mechanisms, economic sanctions, and chapter VII powers) to prevent atrocity crimes and to protect civilians from their occurrence. The authority to employ the use of force under the framework of the responsibility to protect rests solely with United Nations Security Council and is considered a measure of last resort.[11]
The responsibility to protect has been the subject of considerable debate, particularly regarding the implementation of the principle by various actors in the context of country-specific situations, such as Libya, Syria, Sudan, Kenya, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Palestine, for example.[12][13][14][15][16][17][18]