600,000 Muslims in the Central African Republic were driven from their homes, Mosques were destroyed, and the livelihood of those who have fled is in ruins. Despite the presence of a United Nations peacekeeping mission, the Muslim minority remains at risk. When I visited a few thousand Muslims remained in besieged communities, many wanted to be evacuated to safer areas, others refused to leave their homes and businesses. Both options presented protection challenges and in both cases, the United Nations struggled to provide adequate protection, inhibited often by resources limitations. A primary objective of the responsibility to protect is to halt ongoing attacks and avert future atrocities. Stopping perpetrators involves a number of strategies including: physically restricting the ability of perpetrators to reach at risk communities; limiting the flow of weapons to perpetrators; raising the costs of committing crimes and changing the calculus of perpetrators; inhibiting the ability of those within and outside the country from aiding and abetting the perpetrators; and impairing the ability of those orchestrating violence to mobilize foot soldiers to commit crimes. We have seen that rapid, coordinated and sustained engagement by domestic governments, regional and international organizations to implement these strategies can help to save lives once atrocities have unfolded. There is no one policy response that will on its own be sufficient to provide protection, instead a range of measures must be used in a calibrated way to address the risks. While there is much discussion of the role of peacekeeping and military intervention in upholding R2P it is worth noting that the majority of tools available do not involve the use of force. In our research we have found that policy responses in three areas can be particularly effective: (1) Targeted economic sanctions and travel bans enacted by the UN Security Council, regional organizations and individual states on suspected perpetrators and where merited, members of their family, and on those aiding and abetting their work can raise the cost of continuing to perpetrate atrocities. All too often we hear that would be perpetrators are concerned about limitations on their ability to travel, and notably on their children’s ability to attend school abroad. (2) Rapid response accountability measures; one of the most prevalent features of situations where atrocities are unfolding is the rampant culture of impunity that fosters a cycle of violence. In such situations where there is little domestic accountability, rapid response accountability measures seek to deter further atrocities by warning perpetrators that in the absence of domestic accountability they will be held responsible by the international community. These measures also serve to provide protection by shining a spotlight on the affected communities, helping to mobilize policy maker and public action, ideally raising the cost of perpetrating atrocities. These measures can include the creation of Commission of Inquiries to investigate and bring their findings to the UN Security