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I. Introduction
It is the beginning of August 2014 in Iraq. 170,000 members of the Kurdish minority religious group, known as the Yazidis, are fleeing their homes as the jihadists, known as the Islamist State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL),1 attack their city.2 Approximately 130,000 Yazidis flee to the cities of Dohuk and Irbil.3 Another 40,000 Yazidis fleeing for their lives take refuge on Mount Sinjar.4 Soon, however, these displaced families realize they may have sealed their fate.5 Surrounded by Islamic militants, they cannot descend the mountain without facing a most certain death.6 But with dwindling supplies of food and water, they will likely die if they stay.7
over a week later, and after calls for a humanitarian intervention from Kurdish officials, the United States, Iraqi Air Force, and Kurd ish Peshmerga8 carry out air strikes and food drops to suppress ISIL's advance against Mount Sinjar and provide much needed supplies to the Yazidis stranded there.9 The Yazidis have suffered significant persecution over the years at the hands of Muslims who disagree with their pre-Islamic faith, which draws from Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism.10 Many Muslims, including Sunni jihadists, have targeted the Yazidis as members of a minority religious group and consider them to be devil worshipers.11
The situation in Iraq and Syria continues to deteriorate. One must wonder whether much of the turmoil could have been prevented if states intervened sooner. As states intervened in the crisis, some provided legal bases for their actions, such as collective self-defense.12 However, the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) provides a legal basis for early non-military intervention and a state's military intervention in Iraq and Syria.13
R2P includes three specific responsibilities: (1) the responsibility to prevent crises; (2) the responsibility to react when individuals are in need; and (3) the responsibility to rebuild and address the cause of the harm after an intervention.14 It also espouses the basic principles that with state sovereignty comes responsibility, and it is a state's responsibility to protect its people.15 When a population is suffering serious harm and the state in question is unwilling or unable to act, the principle of non-intervention yields to the principle of R2P.16
Since the mid-1990s, there has been a sea of change regarding state sovereignty...