The 2005 World Summit recognized the responsibility to protect. In one sense, this might be considered a normative revolution: a sign that the international human rights regime has reached a middle stage in a ‘lifecycle’ that has the potential to end in states’ internalization of the obligations of human rights protection (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). In another sense, however, this was just a re-statement and consolidation of a long list of human rights responsibilities states have already taken on. These have been applied inconsistently, even hypocritically, over the last 65 years, as the modern human rights regime has developed (Krasner 1999). Looking beyond the text of the World Summit resolution itself and into its meaning and implications for theory and practice, we can ask: what is the best way to explain and understand these developments?