International Journal of Law

Authors
Vijay Kumar, Dr. SR Subramanian, Dr KD Raju

Abstract
The emerging concerns over human security issues across the globe, and inconsistent approach of the international community to address them have resulted into a new understanding of sovereignty. In other words, sovereignty which was once viewed as authority is increasingly perceived as responsibility towards its own people. The endorsement of this change in the form of Canadian ICISS report has signalled the arrival of the new norm of intervention. Since then, this new norm has received increased global attention with frequent calls for its invocation in many troubled spots of the world, be it the Libyan crisis or the Syrian conflict or the recent Rohingya refugee crisis. On the other hand, India traditionally had noninterventionist approach to sovereignty. In fact, declaration of ‘panchsheel doctrine’ and the establishment of Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) soon after its political independence were clearly evident of this approach. Hence, India has fundamentally objected to the idea of ‘R2P’, though it has reluctantly accepted the first two pillars. In this connection, this paper, as a departure from the existing literature, rather than focussing on R2P using it as a prism, analyses the India’s changing approach towards the conception of sovereignty.