Abstract
The adoption of the principle of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) by all United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) member states in 2005, and its reaffirmation in dozens of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, indicate that there is a growing consensus around the world that egregious human rights violations necessitate a cooperative and decisive international response. But just as the political debates raged surrounding the precise articulation of RtoP between 2001 and 2005, so too goes the contemporary debate surrounding the implementation of RtoP. Regional divergences in RtoP implementation, in particular, have been noted by many scholars, as regional organizations implement those elements of RtoP that best suit their policy goals. This paper will apply recent scholarship on norm-lifecycles, specifically on “norm localization” to the operationalization of RtoP by regional organizations. We seek to explore regional divergences on RtoP implementation between the European Union (EU), League of Arab States (LAS), and the African Union (AU) on Libya and Syria. From this assessment, three main arguments will be put forward: (1) regional organizations remain politicized, reframing RtoP in divergent ways that dilute the strength of the norm, (2) politicization of the RtoP discourse constrains regional norm localization processes, (3) politicization and reframing of RtoP inhibit regional normative change and limit the potential for timely and decisive responses to protect civilians.
Highlights
With the adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) in the World Summit Outcome Document (WSOD) by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) member states in 2005, and its reaffirmation in multiple UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions since 2006, scholarly and political debates have shifted from a focus on the “what” questions concerning the conceptual parameters of the evolving norm, to the “how?” and “under whose authority?” questions surrounding its implementation
Given the stalemate of the P-5 member states on Syria following the controversial intervention in Libya by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in 2011, and even though the connection between these two cases and the action and inaction taken in turn has been much debated (Bellamy, 2014; Morris, 2013), what is clear is the extent to which RtoP has become politicized within the Security Council
Dembinski and Schott (2014) argue that the European Union (EU) has “pruned international norms” to fit its existing niche activities: “we find that the EU acknowledged the R2P after this concept has been approved by the World Summit and interpreted it in a way that corresponded with the existing European security culture and its focus on peace-building and preventive measures.” (p. 370)
Summary
With the adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) in the World Summit Outcome Document (WSOD) by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) member states in 2005, and its reaffirmation in multiple UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions since 2006, scholarly and political debates have shifted from a focus on the “what” questions concerning the conceptual parameters of the evolving norm, to the “how?” and “under whose authority?” questions surrounding its implementation. Given the stalemate of the P-5 member states on Syria following the controversial intervention in Libya by NATO forces in 2011, and even though the connection between these two cases and the action and inaction taken in turn has been much debated (Bellamy, 2014; Morris, 2013), what is clear is the extent to which RtoP has become politicized within the Security Council This politicization and subsequent inaction has increased pressure on the United Nations (UN) to empower regional organizations to take a greater role in implementing RtoP, given the unlikely immediate possibility of UNSC reform. This paper seeks to explore whether regional rhetorical commitment and initiatives on RtoP have strengthened the international community’s implementation of RtoP, whereby operationalizing the concept has meaningfully enhanced regional capacity to protect civilians from mass atrocity crimes
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