Description
Promoting and protecting the national interest is an explicit element of UK foreign policy. Despite the difficulty of locating a precise definition, foreign policy agents, such as the Prime Minister, have been quick to connect the national interest with other foreign policy goals, such as democracy promotion, human rights protection, and maintaining a global role. Whilst democracy promotion and the UK’s global role have received some scholarly attention, human protection has less so. Through drawing on a conceptualisation of human protection according to the responsibility to protect (R2P) and the protection of civilians (PoC) as more specific forms of human rights protection, this paper will examine the relationship between the national interest and human protection from 2010 to 2019. This is in addition to the relative importance of protection compared to democracy promotion and maintaining a global role. This timeframe is based on the argument in this paper that it was during this period where the national interest became a more explicit goal of UK foreign policy, along with its linkages to human protection. The paper will draw on substantial primary data through content analysis of prime ministerial and foreign secretary speeches and statements (2010-2019). The initial findings reveal a complex, but potentially complementary, relationship between the national interest and human protection. Here, the national interest provides a useful means through which to sell potentially controversial foreign interventions to the British public, the results of which must be understood within the context of interventions undertaken during the New Labour years.
