Indian Perspectives on the ‘Responsibility to Protect'

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 296-316
Author(s):  
Akanksha Singh
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Initial Phase ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
World Summit ◽  
The Us ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The World ◽  
Case Basis

The concept of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) took shape to refine the contested concept of ‘humanitarian intervention’. In the initial phase, the concept of R2P did not receive enthusiastic endorsement. Developing countries including India perceived it as a new body with the old spirit and likened it with the concept of humanitarian intervention, and this was reinforced by the US-led war against Iraq in 2003. However, the 2005 World Summit proved to be a watershed in the evolution of R2P, just as it is a landmark to understand an important phase of India’s approach to the idea. It would not be accurate to characterize India as a determined nay-sayer on R2P endorsement, particularly in view of the widely known priority India attached at the World Summit to the question of United Nations (UN) Security Council enlargement. Eventually, by 2009 (with the introduction of ‘three- pillar principles’ of R2P), India became a major proponent for the cautious and legitimate implementation of R2P. However, the experiences gained from Libya made India become a voice of caution in invoking forcible options under the R2P principle in Syria. In this article, the attempt has been made to articulate various permutations and combinations regarding India’s evolving approach to R2P on a case-by-case basis.

Responsibility to Protect, Polarity, and Society

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Murray ◽  
Tom Keating
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
World Order ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
The Us ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Resolution 1973 ◽  
Other World ◽  
Emerging Powers

Robert Keating and Tom Murray argue that the implementation of R2P has failed despite the rhetorical consensus around R2P over the last decade. They suggest that the behaviour of the US and its NATO allies are partly to blame. These powers ignored the UN Security Council over Kosovo, which other world powers such as the BRICs took as an affront and a challenge. Normative defiance to the liberal world order was the reaction: Russia in particular became less willing to support humanitarian intervention than it had been throughout the 1990s. Similarly, in Libya, NATO refused to conform to the limitations on the intervention imposed by UNSC Resolution 1973. This weakened confidence in the Security Council’s ability to manage interventions, further undermining support for such operations generally. Thus the manner in which Western powers have sought to implement R2P has alienated the emerging powers on whose support successful R2P implementation depends.

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.

The Genesis of R2P

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Cater ◽  
David M. Malone
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
Human Security ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
World Summit ◽  
Gareth Evans ◽  
The World ◽  
High Level ◽  
Early Human ◽  
Outcome Document

This chapter addresses the evolution of the responsibility to protect concept from September 1999 to its adoption in the World Summit Outcome Document of September 2005. It covers Kofi Annan’s ‘dilemma of intervention’, some early human security initiatives by Canada including the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) and its report The Responsibility to Protect which first articulated the moniker as well as the concept, the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and the Secretary-General’s report In Larger Freedom, the negotiations and Outcome Document of the World Summit, and the early incorporation of protection of civilians within Security Council resolutions. Throughout this narrative, the importance of sustained advocacy by key individuals—including Kofi Annan, Lloyd Axworthy, and Gareth Evans among others—is presented as vital to the evolution (in theory and in practice) of the responsibility to protect.

From Humanitarian Intervention to the Responsibility to Protect

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt Mills ◽  
Cian O’Driscoll
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Just War ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Humanitarian Assistance ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World Summit ◽  
The World

In contrast with humanitarian access or the provision of humanitarian assistance, humanitarian intervention is commonly defined as the threat or use of force by a state to prevent or end widespread and grave violations of the fundamental human rights of individuals other than its own citizens, without the permission of the state within whose territory force is applied. In support of their cause, advocates of humanitarian intervention often draw upon and reference the authority of the notional “just war.” The four main ways by which humanitarian intervention has been connected to the idea of the just war relate to the ideals of self-determination, punishment, responsibility, and conditional sovereignty. For a humanitarian intervention to be considered legitimate, there must be a just cause for intervention; the use of force must be a last resort; it must meet the standard of proportionality; and there must be a good likelihood that the use of force will contribute to a positive humanitarian outcome. The historical practice of humanitarian intervention can be traced from the nineteenth century to the recognition of the Responsibility to Protect by the World Summit in 2005 and its application in Darfur. Major conceptual debates surrounding humanitarian intervention include the problematic relation between sovereignty and human rights, the legal status of intervention, the issue of multilateralism versus unilateralism, and the quest for criteria for intervention.

16. The Responsibility to Protect

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Spencer Zifcak
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
World Summit ◽  
International Intervention ◽  
Detailed Consideration ◽  
The North ◽  
The World ◽  
Before And After

This chapter discusses the responsibility to protect, which has become the primary conceptual framework within which to consider international intervention to prevent crimes against humanity; it provides the background to the new doctrine’s appearance with a survey of the existing law and practice with respect to humanitarian intervention. It traces the doctrine’s intellectual and political development both before and after the adoption of the World Summit resolutions that embodied it. Debate about the doctrine has been characterized by significant differences of opinion and interpretation between nations of the North and the South. In that context, the chapter concludes with a detailed consideration of the contemporary standing of the doctrine in international law.

The Status of the “Responsibility to Protect (Rtop)“ Doctrine in Light of the Conflicts in Libya and Syria

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 495
Author(s):  
Petra Perisic
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
World Summit ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The Status ◽  
Resolution 1973 ◽  
The One ◽  
Outcome Document

In 2001 the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty introduced a new doctrine of the “Responsibility to Protect (RtoP)”, which signified an obligation of each state to protect its population from mass atrocities occurring in that state, as well as an obligation on the part of international community to offer such protection if the state in question fails to fulfill its duty. The doctrine of RtoP was subsequently endorsed by states in the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document, though it was formulated more restrictively in comparison to the 2001 Report. In 2011 a conflict broke out in Libya between its ruler Muammar Gaddafi and the protesters against his rule. Government forces were brutal in their attempt to quell the protests and it was not long before different international bodies started to report mass violations of human rights. Surprisingly, the UN Security Council was not deadlocked by veto and passed the Resolution 1973, which invoked the RtoP principle and authorized the use of force. Supporters of RtoP hailed such an application of the principle and believed that the case of Libya was just a beginning of a successful bringing RtoP to life. Such predictions turned out to be premature. Not long after the Libyan conflict, the one in Syria began. Although Syrian people was faced with the same humanitarian disaster as Libyan did, the Security Council could not agree on passing of the resolution which would authorize the use of force to halt human rights violations. Two crises are being analyzed, as well as reasons behind such a disparate reaction of the Security Council in very similar circumstances.

How the Responsibility to Protect Influences the Security Council’s Powers, Limits and Dynamic

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa-Marie Komp
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
World Summit ◽  
Humanitarian Crises ◽  
State Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Council Work

In 2005, the Responsibility to Protect was adopted in the World Summit Outcome with the aim to enable an efficient response to humanitarian crises by making the Security Council “work better”. The swift reaction to the events in Libya sparked the hope that the new concept enabled the Security Council to function this smoothly in the future. The debates within the Council in relation to the NATO intervention demonstrate that the Responsibility to Protect was able to contribute to this success in certain, limited ways. At the same time, these debates were herald to the problems experienced in relation to the events in Syria. Through an analyses of the debates concerning Libya within the Council, debates in other UN bodies related to the new concept, State practice, and relevant documents, this article will outline the potential of the Responsibility to Protect to make the Council “work better”, as well as its limitations.

Libya and the Responsibility to Protect: The Exception and the Norm

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex J. Bellamy
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
World Summit ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Resolution 1973 ◽  
High Level

The Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) played an important role in shaping the world's response to actual and threatened atrocities in Libya. Not least, the adoption of Resolution 1973 by the UN Security Council on May 17, 2011, approving a no-fly zone over Libya and calling for “all necessary measures” to protect civilians, reflected a change in the Council's attitude toward the use of force for human protection purposes; and the role played by the UN's new Joint Office on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect points toward the potential for this new capacity to identify threats of mass atrocities and to focus the UN's attention on preventing them. Given the reluctance of both the Security Council and the wider UN membership even to discuss RtoP in the years immediately following the 2005 World Summit—the High-level Plenary Meeting of the 60th Session of the General Assembly that gave birth to RtoP—these two facts suggest that significant progress has been made thanks to the astute stewardship of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is personally committed to the principle. Where it was once a term of art employed by a handful of like-minded countries, activists, and scholars, but regarded with suspicion by much of the rest of the world, RtoP has become a commonly accepted frame of reference for preventing and responding to mass atrocities.

Searching for new Sources of growth. Are the Developing Countries Catching up with the Developed ones?

2015 ◽  
pp. 30-53
Author(s):  
V. Popov
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Gdp Per Capita ◽  
The West ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Economic Divergence ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Relative Standing

This paper examines the trajectory of growth in the Global South. Before the 1500s all countries were roughly at the same level of development, but from the 1500s Western countries started to grow faster than the rest of the world and PPP GDP per capita by 1950 in the US, the richest Western nation, was nearly 5 times higher than the world average and 2 times higher than in Western Europe. Since 1950 this ratio stabilized - not only Western Europe and Japan improved their relative standing in per capita income versus the US, but also East Asia, South Asia and some developing countries in other regions started to bridge the gap with the West. After nearly half of the millennium of growing economic divergence, the world seems to have entered the era of convergence. The factors behind these trends are analyzed; implications for the future and possible scenarios are considered.

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