The Yazidi and the responsibility to protect

This thesis analyzes the international community's response to the persecution of the Yazidi people by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and what implications this response has for the Responsibility to Protect doctrine.;To answer this question, I chart and assess the major historical events that contributed to the emergence of the Responsibility to Protect, define the current legal status of the Responsibility to Protect, compare related sources of public international law, and investigate the relationship between the responsibility to protect doctrine and the Yazidi people through a case study of the persecution of the Yazidi people at the hands of the extremist organization known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).;I found the international community's response to the Yazidi crisis to be both inadequate and harmful to the Yazidi. Additionally, the international community's response reinforced the unfavorable precedent set during the Libyan Intervention in 2011.