Responsibility to protect
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P or RtoP) is a global political commitment which was endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit in order to address its four key concerns to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.[1][2] The doctrine is regarded as a unanimous and well-established international norm over the past two decades.[3]
The principle of the Responsibility to Protect is based upon the underlying premise that sovereignty entails a responsibility to protect all populations from mass atrocity crimes and human rights violations.[4][5][6] The principle is based on a respect for the norms and principles of international law, especially the underlying principles of law relating to sovereignty, peace and security, human rights, and armed conflict.[7][8] The R2P has three pillars:
While there is agreement among states about the Responsibility to Protect, there is persistent contestation about the applicability of the third pillar in practice.[9] The Responsibility to Protect provides a framework for employing measures that already exist (i.e., mediation, early warning mechanisms, economic sanctions, and chapter VII powers) to prevent atrocity crimes and to protect civilians from their occurrence. The authority to employ the use of force under the framework of the Responsibility to Protect rests solely with United Nations Security Council and is considered a measure of last resort.[11]
The Responsibility to Protect has been the subject of considerable debate, particularly regarding the implementation of the principle by various actors in the context of country-specific situations, such as Libya, Syria, Sudan, Kenya, Ukraine and Palestine, for example.[12][13][14][15][16][17]
History[edit]
1990s: Origins[edit]
The norm of the R2P was born out of the international community's failure to respond to tragedies such as the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the Srebrenica genocide in 1995. Kofi Annan, who was Assistant Secretary-General at the UN Department for Peacekeeping Operations during the Rwandan genocide,[27] realized the international community's failure to respond. In the wake of the Kosovo intervention, 1999, Annan insisted that traditional notions of sovereignty had been redefined: "States are now widely understood to be instruments at the service of their peoples",[28] he said, while U.S. President Bill Clinton cited human rights concerns in 46% of the hundreds of remarks that he made justifying intervention in Kosovo.[29] In 2000, and in his capacity as UN Secretary-General, Annan wrote the report "We the Peoples" on the role of the United Nations in the 21st Century, and in this report he posed the following question: "if humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica – to gross and systematic violations of human rights that offend every precept of our common humanity?"[30]
2000: African Union proposes a right to intervene[edit]
The African Union (AU) claimed a responsibility to intervene in crisis situations if a state is failing to protect its population from mass atrocity crimes.[31] In 2000, the AU incorporated the right to intervene in a member state, as enshrined in Article 4(h) of its Constitutive Act, which declares "[t]he right of the Union to intervene in a Member State pursuant to a decision of the Assembly in respect of grave circumstances, namely war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity".[32] The AU also adopted the Ezulwini Consensus in 2005, which welcomed R2P as a tool for the prevention of mass atrocities.[33]
2000: International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty[edit]
In September 2000, following an appeal by its Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, the Canadian government established the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) to answer Annan's question "if humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica – to gross and systematic violations of human rights that affect every precept of our common humanity?" In February 2001, at the third round table meeting of the ICISS in London, Gareth Evans, Mohamed Sahnoun, and Michael Ignatieff suggested the phrase "responsibility to protect" as a way to avoid the "right to intervene" or "obligation to intervene" doctrines and yet keep a degree of duty to act to resolve humanitarian crises.[34]
In 2001, ICISS released a report titled "The Responsibility to Protect" Archived 2016-01-09 at the Wayback Machine. In a radical reformulation of the meaning of state sovereignty, the report argued that sovereignty entailed not only rights but also responsibilities, specifically a state's responsibility to protect its people from major violations of human rights. This idea rested on earlier work by Francis Deng and Roberta Cohen regarding internally displaced persons.[35] Inspiration may also be attributed to Jan Eliasson, who in response to a questionnaire on internally displaced persons distributed by Francis Deng, stated that assisting populations at risk within their own country was "basically a question of striking a balance between sovereignty and solidarity with people in need."[36] The ICISS report further asserted that, where a state was "unable or unwilling" to protect its people, the responsibility should shift to the international community and "the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect." The ICISS argued that any form of military intervention is "an exceptional and extraordinary measure", and, as such, to be justified it must meet certain criteria, including:[37]
In practice[edit]
Kenya, 2007–2008[edit]
From December 2007 to January 2008, Kenya was swept by a wave of ethnic violence triggered by a disputed presidential election held on 27 December 2007. On 30 December 2007, Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of the presidential elections and was sworn in as president a couple of hours later. The announcement of the results triggered widespread and systematic violence resulting in more than 1,000 deaths and the displacement of over 500,000 civilians. Clashes were characterized by the ethnically targeted killings of people aligned with the two major political parties, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and the Party of National Unity (PNU).[55]
External intervention was almost immediate. French Foreign and European Affairs Minister Bernard Kouchner made an appeal to the UN Security Council in January 2008 to react "in the name of the responsibility to protect" before Kenya plunged into a deadly ethnic conflict. On 31 December 2007, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement expressing concern for the ongoing violence and calling for the population to remain calm and for Kenyan security forces to show restraint. On 10 January 2008, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was accepted by both the ODM and the PNU as the African Union Chief Mediator. Mediation efforts led to the signing of a power-sharing agreement on 28 February 2008. The agreement established Mwai Kibaki as President and Raila Odinga as Prime Minister, as well as the creation of three commissions: the Commission of Inquiry on Post-Election Violence (CIPEV); the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission; and the Independent Review Commission on the General Elections. This rapid and coordinated reaction by the international community was praised by Human Rights Watch as "a model of diplomatic action under the 'Responsibility to Protect' principles".[56]
Ivory Coast, 2011[edit]
On 30 March 2011, in response to the escalating post-election violence against the population of Ivory Coast in late 2010 and early 2011, the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1975 condemning the gross human rights violations committed by supporters of both ex-President Laurent Gbagbo and President Alassane Ouattara. The resolution cited "the primary responsibility of each State to protect civilians", called for the immediate transfer of power to President Ouattara, the victor in the elections, and reaffirmed that the United Nations Operation in Ivory Coast (UNOCI) could use "all necessary means to protect life and property." On 4 April 2011, in an effort to protect the people of Ivory Coast from further atrocities, UNOCI began a military operation,[57] and President Gbagbo's hold on power ended on 11 April when he was arrested by President Ouattara's forces. In November 2011, President Gbagbo was transferred to the International Criminal Court to face charges of crimes against humanity as an "indirect co-perpetrator" of murder, rape, persecution, and other inhumane acts.[58] On 26 July 2012, the Council adopted resolution 2062 renewing the mandate of UNOCI until 31 July 2013. The mission officially ended on 30 June 2017.[59]
Praise[edit]
Anne-Marie Slaughter from Princeton University has called R2P "the most important shift in our conception of sovereignty since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648."[75]
Louise Arbour from the International Crisis Group said that "The responsibility to protect is the most important and imaginative doctrine to emerge on the international scene for decades."[76]
Francis Deng, former UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, stated that "R2P is one of the most powerful and promising innovations on the international scene."[76]
Political scientist Alex Bellamy argues (i) that there is evidence of behavioral change in the way international society responds to mass killing and (ii) that R2P considerations have influenced behavior.[77] On the first point, Bellamy argues that criticism of R2P as insufficient change is driven by a small subset of cases (Darfur, Libya and Syria) that are not indicative of strong trends. On the second point, Bellamy finds that R2P language is used in UNSC deliberations and in the rhetoric of world leaders.
International relations professor Amitai Etzioni notes R2P challenges the Westphalian norm that state sovereignty is “absolute.” R2P establishes “conditional” state sovereignty contingent upon fulfilling certain domestic and international obligations. Etzioni considers the R2P norm of conditional sovereignty a communitarian approach as it recognizes states have the right to self-determination and self-governance, but they also have a responsibility to the international community to protect the environment, promote peace, and not harm their state’s inhabitants.[78]