Norm compliance by proximity: explaining the surge of regional actors in responsibility to protect

Abstract

International military interventions in Libya and Côte d'Ivoire in 2011 revealed that regional and sub-regional organisations are playing an increasingly active and important role in the implementation of Responsibility to Protect (RtoP). However, the academic and policy analyses of RtoP have not thus far presented any comprehensive model to explain the emergence of regional actors in RtoP. This article develops and applies a four-fold taxonomy, according to which the unique powers of regional actors in initiating and implementing RtoP can be attributed to four types of compliance effects. First, regional actors themselves can directly promote RtoP for either normative or strategic reasons. Second, they can wield either normative or strategic compliance pull on other actors, such as the permanent members of the UN Security Council, which is an indirect but effective way to implement RtoP. As a benefit, this taxonomy reveals the diversity and depth of compliance effects wielded by regional actors in the RtoP process. The powers of regional actors in RtoP are realised on multiple fronts, rather than through a singular channel. This conclusion challenges the whole conception of RtoP by demonstrating that the traditional two-layered idea of RtoP developed in the mainstream literature, according to which RtoP is composed of the levels of international society and its member states, should be replaced with a tri-layered conception which also recognises the emerging middle level of regional actors.