Human rights localisation in liberal states: the UK’s responsibility to protect as regime change and political transition in Syria

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Chloë M. Gilgan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
Responsibility To Protect

A Model Humanitarian Intervention? Reassessing NATO's Libya Campaign

2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan J. Kuperman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Weapons Proliferation ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Nato Intervention

NATO's 2011 humanitarian military intervention in Libya has been hailed as a model for implementing the emerging norm of the responsibility to protect (R2P), on grounds that it prevented an impending bloodbath in Benghazi and facilitated the ouster of Libya's oppressive ruler, Muammar al-Qaddafi, who had targeted peaceful civilian protesters. Before the international community embraces such conclusions, however, a more rigorous assessment of the net humanitarian impact of NATO intervention in Libya is warranted. The conventional narrative is flawed in its portrayal of both the nature of the violence in Libya prior to the intervention and NATO's eventual objective of regime change. An examination of the course of violence in Libya before and after NATO's action shows that the intervention backfired. The intervention extended the war's duration about sixfold; increased its death toll approximately seven to ten times; and exacerbated human rights abuses, humanitarian suffering, Islamic radicalism, and weapons proliferation in Libya and its neighbors. If it is a “model intervention,” as senior NATO officials claim, it is a model of failure. Implementation of R2P must be reformed to address these unintended negative consequences and the dynamics underlying them. Only then will R2P be able to achieve its noble objectives.

Just Not in the Neighbourhood: China's Views on the Application of the Responsibility to Protect in the DPRK

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Courtney J. Fung
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
Chinese Foreign Policy ◽  
International Norms ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Active Engagement ◽  
Near Abroad ◽  
Policy Elites

Abstract Much has been written about China's active engagement and progressive approach to the “responsibility to protect,” a norm that reframes state sovereignty not as a right but as a responsibility. China's response to the “Report of the UN Commission of Inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK),” which invokes the norm, however, challenges existing literature. China flatly refuses to uphold the responsibility to protect in the case of the DPRK, despite using previously supported standards to invoke the norm elsewhere and the report's dozens of consensual recommendations. This article is the first to systematically investigate how China has responded to the report. It shows that China's responses are shaped by its exceptionalism and concerns that the responsibility to protect could lead to regime change. I conclude with implications for the broader question of China's engagement with international norms in its near abroad. In my discussion, I draw on interviews with Korean and Chinese foreign policy elites, UN and US officials and DPRK human rights advocates, as well as primary and secondary documents.

Humanitarian Intervention

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Caplan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Future Development ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Real Effect ◽  
General Decline ◽  
Humanitarian Crises ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The Way

States – Western ones, at least – have given increased weight to human rights and humanitarian norms as matters of international concern, with the authorization of legally binding enforcement measures to tackle humanitarian crises under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. These concerns were also developed outside the UN Security Council framework, following Tony Blair’s Chicago speech and the contemporaneous NATO action over Kosovo. This gave rise to international commissions and resulted, among other things, in the emergence of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) doctrine. The adoption of this doctrine coincided with a period in which there appeared to be a general decline in mass atrocities. Yet R2P had little real effect – it cannot be shown to have caused the fall in mass atrocities, only to have echoed it. Thus, the promise of R2P and an age of humanitarianism failed to emerge, even if the way was paved for future development.

Is Democracy Exportable?

2019 ◽  
pp. 724-742
Author(s):  
Pierre Salmon
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Yardstick Competition ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
The People

Among many aspects to the question of whether democracy is exportable, this contribution focuses on the role of the people, understood not as a unitary actor but as a heterogeneous set: the citizens. The people matter, in a different way, both in the countries to which democracy might be exported and in the democratic countries in which the question is about promoting democracy elsewhere. The mechanisms or characteristics involved in the discussion include yardstick competition, differences among citizens in the intensity of their preferences, differences among autocracies regarding intrusion into private life, citizens’ assessments of future regime change, and responsiveness of elected incumbents to the views of minorities. The second part of the contribution explains why promotion of democracy is more likely to work through citizens’ concern with human rights abuses than with regime characteristics.

scholarly journals The Dog That Didn’t Bark? A Response to Dunne and Gelber’s Analysis of RtoP’s Influence on the Intervention in Libya

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aidan Hehir
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
International Response ◽  
Global Responsibility ◽  
Resolution 1973

In this article I challenge the argument presented by Tim Dunne and Katherine Gelber in ‘Arguing Matters: The Responsibility to Protect and the Case of Libya’ (Global Responsibility to Protect vol. 6, iss. 3, 2014). I argue that the evidence supplied by Dunne and Gelber to support their argument that the Responsibility to Protect played a role in the debate on the international response to the crisis in Libya is based on an unsustainable expansion of what constitutes RtoP language, fails to acknowledge the historical evolution of human rights-orientated discourse, and exaggerates the extent to which references were made to RtoP during the debates preceding Resolution 1973.

scholarly journals Is the Responsibility to Protect an Accepted Norm of International Law in the post-Libya Era?

2018 ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Jeremy Sarkin
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
One Dimensional

This article explores the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) in the post-Libya era to determinewhether it is now an accepted norm of international law. It examines what RtoP means intoday`s world and whether the norm now means that steps will be taken against states thatare committing serious human rights violations. The building blocks of RtoP are examined tosee how to make the doctrine more relevant and more applicable. It is contended that theresponsibility to react should be viewed through a much wider lens and that it needs to bemore widely interpreted to allow it to gain greater support. It is argued that there is a need tofocus far more on the responsibility to rebuild and that it ought to focus on the transitionallegal architecture as well as transitional justice. It is contended that these processes ought notto be one-dimensional, but ought to have a variety of constituent parts. It is further arguedthat the international and donor community ought to be far more engaged and far moredirective in these projects.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document