The Responsibility to Protect in a Reformed UN Security Council: A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Banteka
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Un Security Council

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 Responsibility Not to Veto

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Morris ◽  
Nicholas Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
International Society ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Pros And Cons

The responsibility to protect (R2P) and the question of UN Security Council veto constraint are intimately linked, but whilst the R2P has become increasingly embedded in diplomatic discourse and practice, the idea that in relation to it the Council’s five permanent members should recognize a ‘responsibility not to veto’ (RN2V) has fared less well. This chapter examines why this should be so. In its assessment of the prospects for, and pros and cons of, veto-restriction, the chapter argues that opposition amongst the P5 to the idea of a RN2V is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future, and it charges advocates of the idea with a failure to recognize that it is ill-conceived to believe that R2P can transcend great power cleavages in international society, whether these stem from principles of prudence, conflicting value systems, or the play of self-interest and great power jockeying for position.

Constitutive mechanisms of UN Security Council practices: Precedent pressure, ratchet effect, and council action regarding intrastate conflicts

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Gehring ◽  
Thomas Dörfler
Keyword(s):  
Member State ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Ratchet Effect ◽  
State Action ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
Intrastate Conflicts ◽  
Un Security Council

AbstractBased upon the current debate on international practices with its focus on taken-for-granted everyday practices, we examine how Security Council practices may affect member state action and collective decisions on intrastate conflicts. We outline a concept that integrates the structuring effect of practices and their emergence from interaction among reflective actors. It promises to overcome the unresolved tension between understanding practices as a social regularity and as a fluid entity. We analyse the constitutive mechanisms of two Council practices that affect collective decisions on intrastate conflicts and elucidate how even reflective Council members become enmeshed with the constraining implications of evolving practices and their normative implications. (1) Previous Council decisions create precedent pressure and give rise to a virtually uncontested permissive Council practice that defines the purview for intervention into such conflicts. (2) A ratcheting practice forces opponents to choose between accepting steadily reinforced Council action, as occurred regarding Sudan/Darfur, and outright blockade, as in the case of Syria. We conclude that practices constitute a source of influence that is not captured by the traditional perspectives on Council activities as the consequence of geopolitical interests or of externally evolving international norms like the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P).

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.

Implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1325: Putting the Responsibility to Protect into Practice

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sahana Dharmapuri
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Security Council Resolution ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Ethnic Cleansing ◽  
Theoretical Terms ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Security Operations

Although the principle of the Responsibility to Protect has a number of supporters, there is still little agreement on institutional procedures to execute Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) systematically. This is due to a lack of consensus on how exactly to operationalize specific RtoP practices with regard to genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes. The acceptance of this line of thinking is peculiar in its ignorance of the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UN 1325) on Women, Peace and Security, by militaries, both national and multinational, over the last five to ten years. Misunderstanding, underutilization, and neglect of the UN 1325 mandate within the RtoP community has caused many important developments in the field to be overlooked. This article attempts to begin filling that gap. It presents an overview of what UN 1325 is about and compares UN 1325 to the Responsibility to Protect agenda. It also examines how implementing UN 1325 in UN and NATO peace and security operations is pushing the RtoP agenda forward in practical, not theoretical, terms in three key areas of military peace and security operations – the transformation of doctrine, command structure, and capabilities.

Separating Intervention from Regime Change: China's Diplomatic Innovations at the UN Security Council Regarding the Syria Crisis

2018 ◽  
Vol 235 ◽  
pp. 693-712 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney J. Fung
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
New Delhi ◽  
Post Intervention ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Policy Elites

AbstractChina's response to the recent Syria crisis at the UN Security Council represents a crucial case in China's approach to intervention in that it breaks from China's recent practice of becoming more permissive regarding intervention. Instead, China actively worked to ensure that a firm line was drawn to separate intervention from foreign-imposed regime change. It did so by employing three diplomatic innovations: exercising multiple, successive vetoes; expanding discourse to delegitimize intervention as “regime change” by Western powers; and engaging in norm-shaping of the international community's “responsibility to protect” post-intervention. Together, these three innovations highlight China's desire to firmly separate the intervention norm from that of regime change. Using a variety of primary sources, the article also draws insights from interviews with foreign policy elites in Beijing, New York and New Delhi.

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.

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