Cosmopolitan Responsibility: The Role of Digital Natives in Fulfilling R2P

• In Event: Communication as Human Rights Politics: Digital Natives, Censorship, Diffusion, and Appropriation

Abstract

Challenging the absolute right of sovereignty and placing a primacy on civilian protection, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Doctrine represents a fundamental shift international relations. Evolving around the same time as R2P, the generation of digital natives has reached an age of maturity and have become significant actors in the field of political science and international affairs. Thanks to social networking and online platforms, digital natives have developed global connections. Additionally, human rights atrocities can be shared around the globe in real time, inspiring a greater outcry for intervention. Social network connections create a forum for the protection and promotion of human rights. This paper seeks to test the hypothesis that the advances of R2P coupled with the coming of age of digital natives creates the ideal conditions for cosmopolitan responsibility, the belief that each person, within their individual capacity, bears a responsibility for the protection and promotion of human rights. By building upon Luck and Luck's (2015) call for an individual responsibility to protect, this paper argues that cosmopolitan responsibility creates the requisite awareness and capacity, made possible by the digital age. The digital age has the potential to enhance human rights protections, but only if populations have access and are willing to be engaged citizens. Digital technology is breaking down barriers between countries and cultures allowing for greater interaction between all connected peoples. Digital technology allows individuals to play a greater role in the protection and promotion of human rights through access to information, ability to document and report, and by creating networks for cooperation between states, civil society, and the public. Cosmopolitan responsibility harnesses the changing political landscape ushered in by the Responsibility to Protect doctrine and the political power of digital natives to create a more robust global framework for the protection and promotion of human rights.

Author

• David Gethings, Kennesaw State University