Preventing Inaction: The Case for R2P

Abstract

As a response to Kofi Annan’s 1999 challenge to the global community to reconcile the “twin principles of sovereignty...and fundamental human rights,” the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine is based upon the rethinking of the sovereignty principle as a responsibility of the state to protect its citizens from human rights violations. Domestic authority is no longer absolute, but rather limited by both human rights principles and the responsibility of a state to protect its citizens. The adoption of the R2P doctrine at the 2005 UN World Summit demonstrated an overwhelming consensus amongst nation-states to prevent and/or put a stop to mass human rights abuses such as genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity - with the use of military force when deemed necessary by a legitimate authority such as the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the invocation of UN Charter a Chapter VII. The R2P principle places an inherent duty to protect citizens irrespective of geopolitics or agreements between states. Under the doctrine, the international community does not have a choice whether to intervene or not; rather, it has a moral, de facto and de Jude obligation to do so when massive human rights violations occur. The Rwandan genocide demonstrates the need for the codification of not the right to intervene, but rather a responsibility to intervene when faced with the evidence of mass human rights abuses. In the case of Rwanda, the great power interests of the United States and France undermined the mechanisms within the UN for mobilising a coherent military force to prevent genocide and protect civilians. While humanitarian intervention has been tainted by neo-imperialist ambitions, the cost of non-intervention in situations of severe human rights abuses, war, or poverty is morally and intrinsically unjustifiable. This paper will state in no uncertain terms that the international community must come to the realisation that they have a responsibility to intervene if states are unwilling or unable to protect their citizens from human rights abuses. Refusing to respond when presented with unequivocal evidence of mass human rights abuses flies in the face of the R2P doctrine itself. As great power interests continue to expand in emerging economies, geopolitical instability and dissatisfaction with illegitimate regimes motivate civil society driven pushes towards democratisation, the international community must be prepared to fulfill their obligation and Responsibility to Protect (R2P).