Abstract
At the UN World Summit in 2005, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously endorsed the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle which is grounded in the central idea that state sovereignty entails responsibilities as well as rights.1 This responsibility exists at both the national and international level as states have a responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. If, for whatever reason, a state ‘manifestly fails’ in this responsibility, then international society is called on to fulfil this responsibility deficit.2 Accordingly, the R2P represents international society’s attempt to forge a new understanding of rightful conduct as legal, moral, and political expectations were altered. This has two points of relevance for this study. First, by applying the R2P to the crime of genocide, it is important to consider how this has impacted on the issue of genocide prevention. Second, by setting out to address the crises that had come to the fore over Kosovo, it is important to analyse the impact of the R2P on the sovereignty-intervention-authority dilemma, which as discussed in Chapter 5, underpinned the post-Cold War legitimacy crisis.3 As a result, this chapter analyses these two points from a legitimacy perspective. In short, the chapter concludes that while the R2P has helped resolve the sovereignty-intervention dilemma through certain aspects, it also suffers from being ‘R2P lite’ as it lacks any serious implementation strategy or new legal requirements; more worryingly, it failed to resolve the authority dilemma, and finally, introduced the prerequisite of a ‘manifest failure’ which may have unintentionally created an additional obstacle to genocide prevention in the future.4
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Notes
For an apt analysis which places Kosovo within the general transition into the R2P, see Ramesh Thakur’s collection of essays in R. Thakur, The Responsibility to Protect: Norms, Laws and the Use of Force in International Politics (New York: Routledge, 2011).
The phrase ‘R2P lite’ was coined by T. G. Weiss in an email to A. J. Bellamy, see A. J. Bellamy, Responsibility to Protect: The Global Effort to End Mass Atrocity Crimes (Cambridge: Polity, 2009), 206
For an analysis which advocates this latter position while explaining the overall controversy, see P. Cunliffe (ed.), Critical Perspectives on The Responsibility To Protect (New York: Routledge, 2011)
C. G. Badescu, Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect (New York: Routledge, 2011), 9.
This five-point plan was released on 7 April 2004 to mark the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. Also, A. Hehir, ‘The Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide: Adding Value to the UN’s Mechanisms for Preventing Intra-State Crises?’ Journal of Genocide Research (13, 3. 2011, 271–86).
Increasingly, the phrase mass atrocity crimes is being used to frame the four crimes identified by the R2P, see D. Scheffer, ‘Atrocity Crimes Framing the Responsibility to Protect’, in R. H. Cooper and J. V. Kohler (eds), The Responsibility to Protect: The Global Moral Compact for the 21st Century (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)
For an insight into Luck’s views, see E. C. Luck, ‘Sovereignty, Choice and the Responsibility to Protect’, Global Responsibility to Protect (1, 1, 2009, 10–21).
G. Evans, The Responsibility to Protect, Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), 52.
M. Senano, ‘Responsibility to Protect — True Consensus, False Controversy’, Development Dialogue (55, 2011, 101–12).
See Badescu, Humanitarian Intervention, and J. Pattison, Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: Who Should Intervene? (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
G. Evans, ‘The Responsibility to Protect: An Idea Whose Time Has Come... and Gone?’ International Relations (22, 3, 2008, 283–98)
For a legal discussion on the ‘Right of Pro-Democratic Intervention’, see C. Gray, International Law and the Use of Force (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 55–9.
L. Arbour, ‘The Responsibility to Protect as a Duty of Care in International Law & Practice’, Review of International Studies (34, 3, 2008, 445–58)
C. B. Walling, ‘The History and Politics of Ethnic Cleansing’, K. Booth (ed.), The Kosovo Tragedy: The Human Rights Dimensions (London: Frank Cass, 2001).
A. L. Bannon, ‘The Responsibility to Protect: The U.N. World Summit and the Question of Unilateralism’, Yale Law Journal (115, 5, 2006, 1157–65)
N. J. Wheeler, Saving Strangers Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 12.
This concern has been evident since the R2P’s endorsement in 2005, see R.J. Hamilton, ‘The Responsibility to Protect: From Document to Doctrine-But What of Implementation?’ Harvard Human Rights Journal (19, 2006, 289–97).
Ki-moon, ‘Implementing the Responsibility to Protect’. Also, A. J. Bellamy, Global Politics and The Responsibility to Protect (New York: Routledge, 2011), 26–50.
A. J. Bellamy, ‘Libya and the Responsibility to Protect: The Exception to the Norm’, Ethics and International Affairs (25, 3, 2011, 263–9)
The idea of a R2P-Plus approach is taken here from M. C. Anthony and B. Chng, ‘Cyclones and Humanitarian Crises: Pushing the Limits of R2P in Southeast Asia’, Global Responsibility to Protect (1, 2, 2009, 135–55)
See J. Brunne and S. Toope, ‘Norms, Institutions and UN Reform: The Responsibility to Protect’, Journal of International Law and International Relations (2, 2006, 121–37).
E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years Crisis, 1919–1939 (London: Macmillan, 2001), 8.
ICISS Report, The Responsibility to Protect, 48. Also, see D. Zaum, ‘The Security Council, The General Assembly, and War: The Uniting For Peace Resolution’, in V. Lowe, A. Roberts, J. Welsh and D. Zaum, The United Nations Security Council and War, The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945 (New York: Oxford, 2008)
J. Krasno and M. Das, ‘The Uniting For Peace Resolution and Other Ways of Circumventing the Authority of the Security Council’, in B. Cronin and I. Hurd, The United Nations Security Council and the Politics of Authority (New York: Routledge, 2008).
See L. H. Woosley, ‘Uniting For Peace Resolution of the United Nations’, American Society of International Law (45, 1, 1951, 129–37).
H. Charlesworth and J. Coicaud (eds), Fault Lines of International Legitimacy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
Fernando Teson, ‘The Vexing Problem of Authority’, Wisconsin International Law Journal (24, 3, 2006, 761–72).
Juan. E. Mendez, ‘The United Nations and the Prevention of Genocide’, in Ralph Henham and Paul Behrens (eds), The Criminal Law of Genocide, International, Comparative and Contextual Aspects (Surrey: Ashgate, 2007), 228.
Bain raises two theories of obligation, natural and conventional, which seem to align themselves with the substantive and procedural approaches to legitimacy raised above. See W. Bain, ‘Responsibility and Obligation in the ‘Responsibility to Protect’, Review of International Studies (36, S1, 2010, 25–46).
C. Stahn, ‘Responsibility to Protect, Political Rhetoric or Emerging Legal Norm?’ American Journal of International Law (101. 1 2007, 99–120)
See Moon, ‘Implementing the Responsibility to Protect’, esp., paragraph 55. A similar sentiment is also found in E. Strauss, ‘A Bird in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush-On the Assumed Legal Nature of the Responsibility to Protect’, Global Responsibility To Protect (1, 3, 2009, 291–323).
See see S. Carvin, ‘A Responsibility to Reality: A Reply to Louise Arbour’, Review of International Studies (36, S1, 2010, 47–54).
A. Bellamy and R. Reike, ‘The Responsibility to Protect and International Law’, Global Responsibility to Protect (2, 3, 2010, 267–86).
L. Glanville, The International Community’s, Responsibility to Protect, Global Responsibility to Protect (2, 3, 2010, 286–306).
Theresa Reinold captures this sentiment when she claims that ‘the vast majority of states states simply does not want to be legally bound to save strangers’, Reinold, ‘The Responsibility to Protect-Much ado about Nothing?’ Review of International Studies (32, S1, 2010, 55–78)
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© 2013 Adrian Gallagher
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Gallagher, A. (2013). The Responsibility to Protect. In: Genocide and its Threat to Contemporary International Order. New Security Challenges Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137280268_6
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