The paper indicates the role of military intervention in the concept of responsibility to protect and describes the conditions on which states (UN members) agreed and which must be fulfilled in order to use armed force in the name of R2P. It also points out cases in which the UN referred to R2P in order to justify military interventions (e.g., the cases of Libya and Syria). Furthermore, the article provides an assessment of the development of the concept of R2P in its military aspect, with references to Brazilian and Chinese initiatives. The author argues that the R2P concept is still valid and useful as a description of the political environment in which the international society must react to human rights violations, but it cannot be used as the sole legal basis for military intervention, as this would be in contravention of the UN Charter.