The InterDependent

When UN historians look back at 2011, they may well remember it as the year of R2P—diplomatic parlance for the “Responsibility to Protect.” All states, the decade-old doctrine argues, are obligated to protect their citizens. Should they fail—whether out of inability or by design—the international community must step in. 2011 certainly wasn’t the first time civilians were endangered by their own government, but it was the first time that the world responded with such military heft, intervening with the sole justification of protecting civilians. As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon put it, “What is happening in Libya, Côte d’Ivoire and elsewhere is a historic precedent, a watershed in the emerging doctrine of the responsibility to protect.”

UN Photo/Iason Foounten

The largest and highest profile intervention came in Libya. In February of this year, popular protests broke out against the regime of Muammar Qaddafi—who reacted with a brutal crackdown on demonstrators. In a response to continued attacks on civilians, including air strikes, the UN Security Council voted to impose a no-fly zone over Libya. Responsibility for imposing the no-fly zone was given to NATO with logistical support from some Arab states. Immediately after the resolution passed, French jets began bombing. Assistance from Britain and the United States soon followed.

Almost as soon as the intervention in Libya began, analysts wondered out loud whether R2P would become the new status quo. The UN Security Council resolution mandating the operation won broad support, including a nod from the Arab League, to move forward. Even traditional opponents of intervention, such as Russia and China, chose to let the resolution go through. But since the resolution eventually, but not intentionally, led to the ousting of the detested leader, the international community may see a diplomatic freeze for the new doctrine. Many countries that had supported the limited resolution felt burned by its broader than intended outcome.

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To understand the context of R2P in the Libya intervention, it’s worth a look back in history at how the doctrine first emerged. After 20th Century genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo rocked the global system, global leaders began to recognize the inadequacies of existing protections for civilians; they sought to establish a means of preventing and halting some of the worst human rights violations from ever happening again. The Responsibility to Protect consequently emerged from a report written by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), a Canadian government-led initiative established in 2000.

For the first time, R2P argued that sovereignty was as much a responsibility as a right for all global states. Back when the UN was created toward the end of the Second World War, the organization’s founders envisioned a system that would reduce the likelihood of conflict between states. One of the central tenets of the UN Charter was then the absolute power of the state within its own territory and was a principle reason that many nations eventually ratified the agreement. As Paul Kennedy writes in The Parliament of Man, "The whole system was tilted to stop transborder aggressions." In Article 2, Part 7 of the Charter it clearly states "nothing in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state."

The first qualification on that sovereignty came in the form of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which gave more rights and protections to individuals than the initial UN Charter. The Declaration has been seen by many as the true starting point for the human rights movement. By clearly defining universal rights, the Declaration gave clear goals for future advocates to fight for.

The Responsibility to Protect was the next logical evolution. As the world struggles on to prevent and respond to mass atrocities, the doctrine offered a mechanism to enforce the rights enshrined in the Human Rights Declaration. R2P, says Century Foundation Fellow Jeffrey Laurenti, provides an "accepted pathway to respond in circumstances where the Genocide Convention had demanded a response." The pathway dictates that states themselves should first work to prevent these crimes, that other states should assist if the state in question cannot protect its people, and lastly, that international actors should intervene to halt the acts as a last resort.

Ramesh Thakur, one of the concept's key architects, argues that the concept "spoke eloquently to the need to change the UN's normative framework in line with the changed reality of threats and victims."

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The notion of Human Rights took centuries before it was invoked in formal declarations and articulated in agreements between nations. R2P, by contrast, has gained recognition rather speedily. After its inception in 2000, the idea received the official blessing of the UN General Assembly in 2005. That formal recognition was then referenced in a 2006 resolution on Darfur. Though not explicitly stated, the notion of R2P was also influential during the recent intervention in Côte d’Ivoire when the Security Council for the first time authorized the use of military force by outside powers solely for the protection of civilians. The idea was specifically mentioned again in July when the Security Council authorized a new peacekeeping mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). Lastly, R2P has now been brought to the top of the international political agenda due to its usage during the Libya intervention.

In its short ten-year history, R2P has already been subject to many interpretations and slight redefinitions. And not surprisingly, international intervention has proven the most contentious bit of the doctrine. This is true particularly after the intervention in Libya. Despite its wide approval initially, NATO operations in the North African country have hardened the skeptics’ positions.

Some critics, notably Roberta Cohen, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, charge that leaving R2P in the hands of the veto-wielding Security Council members subjects it to the whims of political realism and national self-interest. “Use of force is not always undertaken with the “’purest’ of intentions” said Vienna Colucci, Managing Director and Senior Advisor for Policy, at Amnesty International USA, referring to the political agendas behind intervention. She also pointed out that “[Military intervention] can itself generate human rights abuses; and armed conflict is not a context in which human rights generally can thrive.”

Also, because of competing political interests, the doctrine may never be implemented in all possible settings. "Political factors rule out anything in Syria," says Laurenti, citing a recent example. "But that cannot be an argument for never acting on behalf of what's right," retorted President Obama in a March 2011 speech where he rebutted critics of the Libya intervention.

Others disagree with the concept on a much more general level. "A more accurate name for R2P would be...redecorated colonialism," said former President of the UN General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockman, a Nicaraguan diplomat. A concurring statement was issued by the Brazilians who maintained "we must avoid excessively broad interpretations of the protection of civilians" so that it is not used "as a smokescreen for intervention or regime change." It was this fear that momentarily stalled discussion on R2P in 2003 when many saw the U.S. led invasion of Iraq as just this type of intervention dressed in humanitarian garb.

Lastly is the fear that it will not be the resolutions themselves that stretch the limits of response to far, but rather their implementation. "We are concerned that the spirit of these resolutions [on Libya and Cote d'Ivoire] go beyond their letter and spirit" < a href="http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/POC%20S%20PV%206531.pdf">said South African Ambassador Mr. Baso Sangqu in a Security council meeting on May 10, 2011.

"The problem," says Laurenti regarding the Libya intervention "is that the authorization for action clearly was limited to protecting the civilian population and the demand for an immediate ceasefire." However, he notes, "it was pretty clear that many of the targets being hit were being chosen to degrade Qaddafi’s ability to hold control. … It was pushing the envelope on what the Security Council had allowed."

Responding to these arguments, advocates of the doctrine have worked to demonstrate that R2P is not about intervention alone. Everything else, they maintain, has to be tried first. "International action is required before the only option is the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division" says Thomas Weiss, director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the City University of New York, writing in a collection of essays on the Libya intervention. Thakur adds in the same volume however, that "to be meaningful, the R2P spectrum of action must include military force as the sharp-edge option of last resort"

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R2P, much like human rights generally, is subject to change and modification over time and may morph in coming years due to some of these criticisms. Like the general concept of human rights, which was placed from time-to-time on the political back-burner due to more pressing matters of Realpolitik during the Cold-war, R2P may not always advance at the rapid pace that it has witnessed thus far.

The recent debate over Libya may result in such a slowing of progress. Recent events, says Laurenti, "should not cast a shadow over the logic of R2P but it has increased skepticism on voices from the West that call for it to be used."

One possible answer to critics of R2P would be to impose stricter restrictions on particular operations that can be undertaken during interventions. Specifically, this would mean mandating that any particular strike be authorized not only by the operating force (for example NATO in the case of Libya) but also by a neutral UN representative – the so-called “dual key” approach.

One must wonder however, when the West will issue such a call to action again. The experience in Libya generated much criticism of U.S. President Barack Obama domestically from both the left and right. Since 2012 will be an election year, it is unlikely that an international intervention will be actively pursued again. Additionally, disagreement over the scope of the intervention within the NATO military alliance casts doubt on whether this particular body will be willing to bear the burden of R2P in the near future.

In the long term, there is still reason to hope that R2P will lessen the impunity under which the perpetrators of atrocities can hide. In the short-term however, the doctrine may need another test before it is completely embraced by the international community. That won’t likely come from any of the high profile countries now enduring internal turmoil, such as Syria or even Sudan. In such politicized cases, Security Council members simply have too much to lose. The next intervention will likely have to look similar to the case of Libya: Where an internationally isolated regime has no allies to call on to stop the world from stepping in.