For the Wind Is in the Palm-Trees: The 2017 Rohingya Crisis and an Emergent UK Approach to Atrocity Prevention

Abstract

This article explores the British government’s recent Myanmar policy, its response to the Rohingya crisis of 2017, and the extent to which increasing scrutiny from parliament and civil society in reaction to the atrocities in Rakhine prompted clearer articulation of a national approach to atrocity prevention. The article presents five key failures and argues that a goal for those wishing to preserve and strengthen the principle of the Responsibility to Protect, and advance the goal of preventing mass atrocities, must be to break it free of the United Nations sphere and integrate the pillars into state structures.