Whatever happened to the Responsibility to Protect?
Supporters of the framework contend that, despite its flaws, R2P gives would-be oppressive governments pause for thought. But does this framework work in a multipolar world?
Majalla
R2P reached a high point in 2011 with global intervention in Libya but was buried by inaction in Syria. Did the global community fail to make it work, or were its ambitions unrealistic from the start?
Whatever happened to the Responsibility to Protect?
In the early years of the 21st century, the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) was a zeitgeist of international relations after the international community stood by while genocides took place in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, leaders, commentators, scholars and more joined the calls to demand: never again.
Yet from that high point in the 2000s, today R2P is rarely mentioned in the same circles. Sadly, the world is not any more stable than before, and the same kind of mass killing and human rights abuses that prompted the development of R2P remains.
Recent conflicts in Ethiopia, Azerbaijan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Sahel have all seen allegations of the kind of crimes R2P was meant to help prevent. At the same time, ethnic and religious groups have been persecuted in Myanmar, China, Sudan and elsewhere.
But the world has seemingly moved on.
While human rights groups still labour to highlight abuses worldwide, and individual leaders sometimes lament mass killings, they rarely cite the doctrine explicitly developed by the international community to provide a framework for action.
It reached an apparent high point in 2011, when the international community’s intervention in Libya was, according to White House National Security advisor Susan Rice, “inspired by R2P”. But soon afterwards inaction in Syria appeared to bury the doctrine.
Did the international community fail to make R2P work, or were its ambitions unrealistic in the first place?
R2P reached a high point in 2011 with global intervention in Libya but was buried by inaction in Syria. Did the international community fail to make R2P work, or were its ambitions unrealistic in the first place?
The rise of R2P
The notion that the international community should intervene to prevent mass killings or humanitarian crises emerged in the 1990s. Historically, foreign states mainly had agreed, in theory at least, that state sovereignty should be respected.
It may be unpalatable if a government mistreated its population, but it would not be legitimate for the international community to intervene on behalf of the oppressed.
This formulation certainly dominated views during the Cold War, when interventions by foreign states were usually about politics – such as whether a state was communist, capitalist, pro-US, or pro-USSR – with little consideration given to how a government was governing.
The ethnic wars of the 1990s shifted the dial.
In 1994, between 500,000 and 650,000 were slaughtered in the Rwanda genocide, while a year later over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed in Srebrenica. In both cases, the international community were lambasted for doing too little to prevent the killing.
A group of villagers dig in the hope of finding human remains of victims of the 1994 Rwandan Tutsi Genocide on May 5, 2023.
In Rwanda especially, the United Nations mission on the ground had no mandate to intervene militarily. Blue Helmets were reduced to a bystander role, trying wherever possible to shelter and protect those they could.
The United States and France were similarly criticised for not using their influence and power to prevent the genocide. US President Bill Clinton later stated it as one of his greatest policy failings.
Inaction prompted Kofi Annan, when he became UN Secretary-General, to ask, "If humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica?"
In essence, he challenged the international community to rethink the inviolability of state sovereignty and consider whether, in some instances, "systematic violations of human rights that offend every precept of our common humanity," might merit outside intervention.
Action had already been taken before Annan's challenge. NATO — fearful of a repeat of the ethnic slaughter of Bosnia — had intervened in Kosovo in 1999.
That same year, British Prime Minister Tony Blair outlined a new understanding of when states should intervene abroad in his' Chicago speech, arguing that, "Acts of genocide can never be a purely internal matter." Like Annan he made the case for what became known as 'liberal intervention': justifying involvement in a foreign state on humanitarian grounds.
Inaction over genocides in the 1990s prompted UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to ask, "If humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica?"
Gradually, over time, a formalised doctrine emerged.
In 2001, Canada established an International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), which first used the term, 'Responsibility to Protect.' It argued that military intervention could be used in "exceptional and extraordinary" circumstances if specific criteria were met.
Protesters hold signs relating to "R2P", or the "Responsibility to Protect" principle that the international community is justified in taking action against a state that failed to protect its population from atrocities.
However, these criteria were not formally codified until the 2005 World Summit where members of the UN unanimously approved a new, revised form of R2P. It narrowed the ICISS' criteria to four 'mass atrocity crimes' warranting intervention: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
Crucially, it stated that for any intervention to be legal, the UN Security Council must approve, which gave massive power over the doctrine's applicability to the five veto-holding permanent members: the US, UK, France, Russia, and China.
A swift fall
In some ways, the 2005 World Summit was a remarkable achievement given that the US and Britain's invasion of Iraq had divided the international community two years earlier.
There followed some successes for the new doctrine. Perhaps most notable was the UN's diplomatic intervention in Kenya in 2007-08, "in the name of the Responsibility to Protect," which persuaded disputing parties at the edge of ethnic conflict to agree to UN mediation.
On the other hand, efforts by the Security Council to pass resolutions to prevent the alleged ethnic cleansing in the Darfur region of Sudan in 2006 were held up on the question of R2P. Some states insisted that language referencing the doctrine be removed before approving Resolution 1706, deploying peacekeepers.
Gradually, over time, a formalised doctrine emerged. In 2001, Canada first used the term, 'Responsibility to Protect.' It argued that military intervention could be used in "exceptional and extraordinary" circumstances if specific criteria were met.
The 2011 NATO intervention in Libya proved to be a high point of R2P and a major cause of its downfall. UN resolution 1973, which authorised a no-fly zone and other military action to be taken against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, was the first time the Security Council had approved the use of force explicitly for the protection of civilians utilising the language of R2P.
The resolution stated that the government's attacks on civilians might constitute, "crimes against humanity," – one of the four criteria agreed at the 2005 World Summit. China and Russia, who had approved of the R2P doctrine in 2005 despite being staunch defenders of state sovereignty, endorsed the action in Libya by abstaining from the vote.
However, the subsequent military action made Beijing, Moscow and others reconsider. Russian and Chinese diplomats both later argued that NATO overstepped its mandate.
While they tacitly approved Resolution 1973 to protect civilians, NATO and its allies launched a campaign to topple the Gaddafi regime. Many have subsequently argued that Russia and China saw Libya as an abuse of power by Western states and turned on R2P.
Libyans walk around graves dug on the ground from which bodies were recovered in the Western town of Tarhuna on February 9, 2022.
Some, such as Jess Gifkins of the University of Queensland's Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect have noted that the language of R2P was utilised by Security Council members more frequently after the Libya intervention than before.
However, at the same time, Russia and China's suspicions that it had become a vehicle to cover Western ambitions of regime change seemingly dulled their enthusiasm for military action in the name of R2P.
The Syria case, so soon after Libya, underlined how much the campaign against Gaddafi had tarnished R2P intervention in the eyes of Russia and China. While today, President Bashar al-Assad is viewed as a close Russian ally after Moscow's intervention in Syria's civil war in 2015, when the rebellion began their ties were less concrete.
The United States believed that Russia could be persuaded to support a political process that would end al-Assad's rule, and, in 2011, then Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, and her team worked hard to lobby the Kremlin.
How much this was ever a possibility is debatable, but Russian anger at the US for overreaching in Libya contributed to a determination to reject any similar action in Syria.
With Libya fresh in their minds, Russia and China steadfastly refused to consider any UN resolutions that might pave the way for intervention against al-Assad, despite mounting evidence that his regime was committing atrocities that might meet one of the doctrine's four criteria.
In October 2011, then again in February and July 2012, Moscow and Beijing vetoed Security Council resolutions condemning al-Assad. Since then, al-Assad has become much more dependent on Russia, and Moscow's continued vetoes in his favour are unsurprising.
But the Syria war, so soon after Libya, seems to have killed any international consensus on when R2P should provoke military action. The Security Council may still use the language of the doctrine at times, but chances of another Libya-style intervention in its name appear highly unlikely.
While they tacitly approved Resolution 1973 to protect civilians, NATO and its allies launched a campaign to topple the Gaddafi regime. Many have subsequently argued that Russia and China saw Libya as an abuse of power by Western states and turned on R2P.
Why has it failed?
Some have argued that R2P did have a degree of success.
Professor Anne Marie Slaughter of Princeton University, who held a role in the Obama administration, has argued that the doctrine has positively redefined the understanding of state sovereignty.
Like other enthusiasts, she has said R2P's codification has changed how international society responds to atrocities, with the question of intervention now at least discussed. Even if it is rarely implemented, the possibility of humanitarian intervention, in theory, gives would-be oppressive governments pause for thought.
However, while advocates of the doctrine will continue to insist on its merits and value, it is rarely mentioned as a possible justification for intervention in today's contemporary conflicts.
For some, the failure lies with leading members of the international community. It is easy to point to Russia and China. They signed up to the redefined understanding of state sovereignty at the World Summit in 2005 but, after agreeing to the Libya intervention, have since been firmly opposed to similar interventions elsewhere, such as in Syria.
This picture taken on February 12, 2022 shows an aerial view of the burial of bodies of victims of reported bombardment by Syrian government forces in the village of Maaret al-Naasan in Syria's rebel-held Idlib province.
Alternatively, some have blamed the US and its NATO allies. Their overstepping in Libya, moving beyond the mandate to protect civilians to change the regime in Tripoli, exposed how R2P could be utilised for geopolitical ends, deterring Washington's rivals from endorsing it again.
R2P supporters contend that even if it is rarely implemented, the possibility of humanitarian intervention, in theory, gives would-be oppressive governments pause for thought.
An alternative view is that R2P undid itself through the codification process in 2005. Before then it was a loose idea, but after 2005, the international community agreed upon a clear set of rules and criteria.
Crucially, they gave veto power to the five members of the UN Security Council, which perhaps made it inevitable that geopolitical priorities would overpower any notion of, "common humanity," that Kofi Annan had urged.
China and Russia protecting their ally Syria — despite its government allegedly committing far worse crimes than those that provoked intervention in Libya — is a clear example.
Past US protection for its allies like Israel at the UN Security Council suggests that the body can rarely put its members' geopolitical preferences to one side. Making it the arbiter of R2P always carried the potential for failure.
A Bosnian Muslim woman and survivor of the Srebrenica 1995 massacre mourns near the casket containing the remains of a relative and victim of the Srebrenica 1995 massacre.
A luxury of unipolarity?
Another way of viewing R2P is that its development has been greatly limited by the end of the unipolar moment and the return of a multipolar world.
Between the end of the Cold War and the 2005 World Summit, Russia and China only vetoed five UN Security Council resolutions. Since then, they have vetoed 30, either together or individually.
When Moscow and Beijing signed up to R2P in 2005, they appeared to accept — whether enthusiastically or not — that the Western states that were pushing this new doctrine were the dominant actors in global politics.
Today, the reality is different; both states are pushing back in multiple ways. If either or both see R2P as a vehicle for Western-led regime change, as occurred during the Libya intervention, it is unsurprising that, now they have the influence and power to do so, China and Russia are reluctant to engage with it.
Perhaps R2P was a product of its time: a luxury of unipolarity that may struggle to have the same impact in today's multipolar world.
