More than three decades ago, one of the authors of this article, Francis Mading Deng, helped develop the concept of Sovereignty as Responsibility when he was head of the African Project team at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, arguing that the legitimacy of states derives not simply from territorial control or international recognition, but from their capacity and willingness to protect the people living under their authority. The framework challenged the traditional notion of sovereignty as a shield against outside scrutiny and instead recast it as a duty toward citizens. It subsequently informed international efforts to address internal displacement and became one of the principal intellectual foundations of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, as well as the broader area of international protection in international law and norms.
Both frameworks emerged from the same normative insight: sovereignty carries obligations as well as rights. Yet they evolved in different directions. Sovereignty as Responsibility sought primarily to strengthen states by redefining sovereignty itself as an obligation to populations. R2P retained that principle but shifted greater emphasis toward the international community’s responsibility when states manifestly fail to protect their populations. While this evolution broadened international protection norms, it also generated enduring concerns, particularly among post-colonial states, that humanitarian intervention could erode sovereign equality and provide a pretext for external interference.
Today, however, the debate has moved beyond that tension. The defining challenge of contemporary conflicts is no longer simply that sovereign states fail to protect their citizens. Increasingly, the problem is that sovereignty itself has become fragmented. Across much of today’s conflict landscape, authority is shared, contested or divided among governments, state and non-state armed movements and groups, customary institutions, international missions, regional organisations, humanitarian actors and local communities.
This changing reality demands a corresponding evolution in political thought. The question is no longer simply whether states are fulfilling their responsibilities. It is increasingly who bears responsibility when authority itself is fragmented, especially in conflict-affected territories. The answer lies in shifting the focus from sovereignty alone to human security as responsibility.
The international system continues to be organised around sovereign states. International law recognises governments, borders and territorial integrity as the primary foundations of political order. Yet the lived realities of millions of people, in many parts of the world, increasingly bear little resemblance to this legal architecture.
In Libya, rival governments coexist with local authorities, tribal structures and competing armed coalitions. In Sudan, multiple centres of military and political authority exercise varying degrees of territorial control. Across the Sahel, communities often depend simultaneously on state institutions, non-state armed groups, customary leaders, local security arrangements and international partners. The eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Syria and Yemen present similar patterns of hybrid governance.
Abyei illustrates the challenge particularly well. Claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan, there are currently three distinct and competing institutions in the Abyei area: a local administration in the Ngok-inhabited territories of Abyei appointed by the Government of the Republic of South Sudan; another administration appointed by the Port Sudan-based based government of Sudan led by General Abdel Rahman al Burhan; and a third administration loyal to the Peace Government based in Nyala, led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. A semblance of international protection is provided by the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA). These national and international actors operate in collaboration with local institutions and customary authorities.
For local communities in conflict-affected territories such as Abyei, the pressing questions are rarely about constitutional doctrine. They concern whether children can attend school safely, pastoralists can move along seasonal migration routes, disputes can be resolved peacefully and families can access healthcare, livelihoods and justice. These realities expose an increasingly significant gap between legal sovereignty and effective governance.
Traditional approaches assume that responsibility naturally follows sovereignty. Contemporary conflicts increasingly reveal the opposite. Sovereignty is often claimed without effective responsibility, while meaningful responsibility is frequently exercised by actors who possess little or no formal sovereign status. This is precisely where the concept of human security becomes indispensable as part of contemporary discussions about the way forward in conjunction with the concept of Sovereignty as Responsibility and the ongoing debate surrounding the future of the principle of R2P.
Developed during the 1990s, the concept of human security shifted attention away from protecting borders towards protecting people. It recognises that individuals experience security not primarily through constitutional arrangements but through freedom from violence, displacement, hunger, disease, exclusion and fear. Human security therefore poses a fundamentally different question: not simply who governs, but who provides protection, services, dignity and opportunity?
Human security therefore poses a fundamentally different question: not simply who governs, but who provides protection, services, dignity and opportunity?
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This does not diminish the central role of the state. On the contrary, states remain indispensable. Rather it recognises that responsibility for human security increasingly operates through multiple, mutually reinforcing layers of authority. Communities, customary institutions, municipal administrations, civil society organisations, regional bodies, international organisations and national governments all contribute – sometimes cooperatively, sometimes imperfectly – to protecting populations and providing essential services. Political legitimacy should therefore be assessed not solely by formal sovereignty, but also by the capacity of institutions at every level to advance human security and fulfil their moral and legal responsibilities towards the people under their jurisdiction. Rather than viewing such pluralism as evidence of state failure, it may increasingly be understood as an adaptive form of governance.
Political legitimacy should therefore be assessed not solely by formal sovereignty, but also by the capacity of institutions at every level to advance human security and fulfil their moral and legal responsibilities towards the people under their jurisdiction
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This represents not a rejection of either Sovereignty as Responsibility or the Responsibility to Protect, but their logical evolution. The original insight remains unchanged: political authority derives its legitimacy from serving people. What has changed is the institutional landscape within which that responsibility must now be exercised.
The future of international order in conflict-affected or contested regions will not be secured by abandoning sovereignty, nor by relying exclusively on international intervention. It will depend on constructing governance systems in which local communities, national institutions, regional organisations and international actors each assume responsibilities proportionate to the authority they exercise.
The next evolution of global governance, therefore, is not simply Sovereignty as Responsibility or even the Responsibility to Protect. It is Human Security as Responsibility: a framework in which the legitimacy of every institution, whether local, national, regional or international, is ultimately measured by its capacity to protect the security, dignity and well-being of the people it serves.
Dr. Francis M. Deng is a distinguished scholar, diplomat, and former United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. Maiwen Ngalueth is an international development specialist and researcher based in Geneva, Switzerland, specialising in conflict analysis, civilian protection, and peacebuilding. Both authors are from Abyei and have devoted their careers to advancing the protection of civilians, humanitarian policy and the study of conflict and governance in Africa.
