International Commission On Intervention And State Sovereignty Research Articles

The Responsibility to Protect: Locating Norm Entrepreneurship

AbstractAs part of the roundtable “The Responsibility to Protect in a Changing World Order: Twenty Years since Its Inception,” this essay examines the issue of norm entrepreneurship as it has been used in conjunction with the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP), twenty years after the emergence of The Responsibility to Protect report produced by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). It examines norm entrepreneurs with enough drive, motivation, and resources to keep RtoP on the international agenda in a changing world order, after Western middle powers, such as Canada and some European Union member states, had previously acted as indispensable norm entrepreneurs. An examination of both Western and non-Western entrepreneurship efforts to date reveals three key observations. First, RtoP champions are now facing additional challenges in today's transitional global order, where nationalistic foreign policy agendas are replacing liberal agendas, such as RtoP. Second, the drive and adaptability of non-Western norm entrepreneurs with regional ambitions mean that small states can emerge as rather-unexpected RtoP champions. Third, giving non-Western states a visible regional or international platform allows them to display leadership in reframing prevention under the RtoP framework. The last two observations point to the increasing role of non-Western states in global governance and in the promotion of prevention measures to protect the most vulnerable, which in turn increases the legitimacy of the RtoP norm itself.

Responsibility to Protect Doctrine to Support Children in Armed Conflict

Children are so vulnerable in armed conflicts. They are international targets of violence, victims of indiscriminate violence, and traumatized witnesses of violence against others. They are disproportionately affected by war, being at greater risk of malnutrition and disease and highly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Despite the emerging acceptance to embrace the responsibility to protect (R2P) doctrine, the use and abuse of children by armed groups, State and non-State, has continued. The Responsibility to Protect claims to offer a solution to one of the gravest issues in world politics – mass atrocities. Ten years after the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) detailed the concept, and five years after it was endorsed by the United Nations, we are presented an opportune moment to critically explore fundamental questions as to whether R2P has, or is able to, deliver on its promise. The article discusses the lack of discourse associated with the child soldier problem and how this relates to responsibility to protect.

Does Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Make Difference to Civilians?: An Analytical and Evaluation Study

In 2001, the International Commission on Intervention and State sovereignty (ICISS) proposed rethinking on sovereignty through the prism of a new concept: the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P). Several years after, its message has been achieved? This is answer to this question that, in the aftermath of the Arab spring, at the end of an intervention that is controversial in Libya and in the face of the Syrian drama, we decided to make an evaluation, by analyzing this doctrine. From details of methodological of the purpose of this article, the review of the legal framework of the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) in international law is based on pre-existing concepts and rules that are sometimes approached such as the international responsibility and criminal responsibility priori conceptualization of the “Responsibility to Protect”, will be the first axis of this study. In the second, axis the responsibility to protect the population rests primarily on the territorial State against war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing. It must be stated that the obligation to protect the concerned State, was necessary before the States itself by establishing international legal standards. If the State is not willing to do or unable, the subsidiary protective role is the responsibility of other actors.The reality of major obstacles reduces the effective implementation on the ground of the “Responsibility to Protect”. These obstacles can be linked with the same design of it, just as they may result from external causes that could make inoperative the responsibility to protect in view of the situation, the international community application does not rely on the implementation of the responsibility to protect in some cases that meet, however, all the conditions to act within this framework. In the third axis of this study, it will be also a review of the operational legal framework.The United Nations has adopted several resolutions on the “Responsibility to Protect”, examining not only their support to the doctrine, but also their willingness to authorize the deployment of peacekeeping operations and to adopt resolutions in support of military intervention paragraph. But the Security Council of the United Nations has not always been unanimous about the situations to which the “responsibility to protect” applies. The case of Darfur and the crisis of the Syria, there was something else, they were exemplary cases of the application of the “Responsibility to Protect” inertia, and the different responses by the international community in the face of these crises, will allow us in the Fourth axis of interesting conclusions about the difficulties in the application thereof.

Reviewing the Responsibility to Protect: origins, implementation and controversies

Ramesh Thakur is a distinguished scholar and an experienced practitioner. Reviewing the Responsibility to Protect, a collection of Thakur's key essays on R2P, with a new introduction and conclusion, draws on his academic expertise in the field of global governance and international security, and constitutes an insider's account of advocacy for norms associated with the nascent human protection regime. Thakur served on the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) and drafted key passages of the report that resulted from its deliberations and international consultations. The book encapsulates his thinking and paints a vivid picture of his perspective on the principle and on central issues of implementation. Taken together, the book conveys his sustained engagement with three central themes: protection responsibilities and their implementation; collective responses and international norms; and relations between the core and the periphery, between states of the global North and those of the global South.

International Law, Sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect: An Overview

This paper is an attempt at analysing the intricacies between international law, the concept of Responsibility to Protect and its implications for the sovereignty of modern states. The paper examines how the concept of responsibility to protect (as stipulated by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS)) impacts on the sovereignty of states. It adopts the essay style of writing and reviews a number of documents on the subject of international law, sovereignty and the responsibility to protect.
 
 The paper consequently argues that though the ICISS claims that its “purpose is not to license aggression with fine words, or to provide strong states with new rationales for doubtful strategic designs” (ICISS, 2001, p. 35), the Commission’s very attempt to exempt the permanent five and other so-called major powers from intervention does just that whether intentionally or unintentionally. It consequently recommends that much effort should be made to address the inequalities within the international system through the formulation of appropriate policies and international regulations that address the sovereign equality of states in the international system, especially on the question of intervention.

Protecting cultural heritage in war zones

In the throes of war, protecting such cultural heritage as the Bamiyan Buddhas, the Mostar Bridge, the Timbuktu libraries and Palmyra supposedly is a priority on the international public policy agenda; but government responses so far have been limited to deploring such destruction. This article explores the evolving, albeit contested, norm of the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) and its relevance for cultural heritage. There is no need for a hierarchy of protection – civilians or culture – because the juxtaposition is as erroneous as choosing between people and the environment. This essay begins with a discussion of cultural heritage and defines the scope for the application of any new international normative consensus. It then explores why R2P, in the original concept of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), is an appropriate framework for thinking about cultural protection, despite considerable political headwinds. It then examines the current opportune political moment and existing legal tools. Finally, there is a brief consideration of the obstacles facing the creation of a better framework for cultural protection in zones of armed conflict.

International commissions as norm entrepreneurs: Creating the normative idea of the responsibility to protect

AbstractDiscussion in international relations often centres on a wide variety of norms, such as sustainable development, global governance, human security, and the responsibility to protect. A significant amount of work focuses on not only the theoretical and policy development of these norms but also the role of various norm entrepreneurs in promoting norm emergence and diffusion. Yet there are still knowledge gaps regarding the norm entrepreneurship role of international commissions that engage in the early stage of the emergence of these norms and their processes. This article elucidates the process of creation of normative ideas by analysing the role of international commissions as norm entrepreneurs, utilising a case study of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), which proposed the normative idea of the responsibility to protect (R2P) in 2001. The theoretical contribution of this article is to expand the understanding of norm entrepreneurship by adding international commissions to the universe of norm entrepreneurs and illuminating their strategies for constructing normative ideas. Empirically, it explores the role and activities of the ICISS in creating the normative idea of R2P, which contrasts the existing literature that has only focused on the development of R2P after the Commission has finished its work.

Dehumanizing R2P: Preventing Mass Atrocities without Human Security?

<p class="a"><span lang="EN-US">In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the World Summit Outcome Document, including three key paragraphs articulating the international community’s responsibility to protect (R2P) civilians from mass atrocities, including war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. Some key controversies and shortcomings of the current R2P principle remain absent from the debate, namely the lack of a human-centered approach from which R2P can be more adequately understood and implemented. I will make three key arguments following from this gap. Firstly, the original articulation of R2P developed by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) in 2001 sought to locate itself largely within the human security discourse to overcome the bureaucratic and “national-interest” obstacles of P5 decision-making on international peace and security as it relates to mass atrocities. Secondly, the state-centric articulation of R2P adopted in the World Summit Outcome Document in 2005, endorsed by the United Nations Security Council in 2006, has reified the inherent problem associated with allowing the UN Security Council the exclusive right to make key global security decisions on egregious crimes perpetrated against civilians. Thirdly, without embedding R2P within the human security discourse, specifically understanding human beings as the referents of security, the principle offers very little significant normative or political progress on the protection of civilians, and will continue to fall short as a galvanizing call to action to prevent mass atrocities, and save civilian lives. </span></p>

From ISIS to ICISS: A critical return to the Responsibility to Protect report

In light of the post-intervention crisis in Libya, this article revisits critically the vision of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) offered in the 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) – frequently taken as the conceptual bedrock for R2P doctrine. It is argued that the perverse effect of ICISS doctrine is to replace political responsibility with paternalism. The demand that states be made accountable to the international community ends by making states accountable for their people rather than to their people. The argument is developed across five critical theses. These include claims that R2P changes the burden of justification for intervention, that it usurps popular sovereignty in favour of state power, and that it diffuses post-conflict responsibilities. The article concludes that pre-emptive ‘human protection’ efforts risk crowding out questions of systemic transformation, i.e. what kind of an international order we want to live in.

Introduction: The Responsibility to Protect after the Arab Spring

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) has become the pre-eminent framework for discussing humanitarian intervention and issues related to human rights protection generally. Its origins lie in the 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), which first proposed the notion of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’. Its adoption at the 2005 United Nations (UN) World Summit, with over 160 heads of state in attendance, has led to numerous inter-disciplinary debates within academia and beyond. The R2P has often been controversial, but the eruption of the ‘Arab Spring’ in late 2010 has constituted the concept’s most exacting test and prompted a further spike in interest in both its efficacy and desirability. The articles in this special issue assess the R2P in light of the events during, and debates surrounding, the Arab Spring. Together, they constitute a uniquely focused assessment of this significant and influential doctrine. This introduction will first consider in more detail the importance of the R2P for the Arab Spring, before going on to consider, conversely, the importance of the Arab Spring for the R2P. It will then outline the focus of the special issue and the two central questions with which it is concerned. Finally, it will provide an overview of the debate in the articles and how they address the two central questions.

The responsibility to protect doctrine – Coherent after all: A reply to Friberg-Fernros and Brommesson

In a recent International Politics article, Henrik Friberg-Fernros and Douglas Brommesson argue that the responsibility to protect (R2P) doctrine, as it was originally introduced in the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) report, is incoherent. More specifically, they contend that there is a fundamental conflict between the implications of R2P and the six criteria the ICISS sets out to evaluate whether an intervention is justified. This article argues that these assertions are based on a misconception of how the criteria for justified intervention are interpreted in the ICISS report. Building on recent arguments from just war theory, I argue that three of these criteria do not stipulate when it is permitted to intervene, but rather what is permitted in an intervention. Subsequently, I demonstrate that in such an application, these criteria are not incompatible with the R2P.

Ethics, Law, and Humanitarian Intervention:

Ethics, Law, and Humanitarian Intervention:

The “responsibility to protect” our answer to “never again”? Libya, Syria and a critical analysis of R2P

Debates over the use of force for humanitarian purposes have been some of the most profound and fascinating of the international society in the post-Cold War period. A surge of intrastate violence in the 1990s and the lack of appropriate response by the international community led UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his counterparts to vow “never again” and to call for a reinterpretation of how we think about humanitarian intervention. The response was a report issued by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) in 2001 entitled, “The Responsibility to Protect” (often referred to as R2P or RtoP) which set about to reconceptualize the seemingly contradictory notions of state sovereignty and humanitarian intervention. Adopted by the UN in 2005, much has been critically written about the norm on all sides. However, not until the Libyan civil conflict in 2011 did we see an actual case in which R2P was specifically invoked to justify military intervention, and thus one where we could test its merits. Many argue Libya shows successful application of R2P, while some say its mandate was overextended. Nonetheless, it has prompted comparisons and contrasts to the situation in Syria, where over 100,000 people have died but where military intervention has not been pursued. This paper analyzes the decisions in both of these instances and the resulting deficiencies of R2P that were highlighted by Libya and Syria: first, the continued subservience of humanitarian norms to political concerns, and second, the lack of conceptual clarity surrounding operational aspects of military intervention. Libya and Syria have both wounded the credibility of the norm.

Theoretical Grounds for Responsibility to Protect : A Two-Tradition Perspective on the Sovereignty-Human Rights Nexus in the History of Political Ideas

This article explores theoretical grounds for Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) within the UN System focusing on the preparation period of the Responsibility to Protect Report of International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). It points out that the numerous roundtable consultations and academic papers in the preparation processes characteristically lack their focus on the history of political ideas devoted to sovereignty and natural rights. While pros and cons still co-exist on the ideal of humanitarian intervention, this article makes the case for humanitarian intervention on the basis of what it calls citizen-centric sovereignty-human rights nexus on the basis of major thinkers’ views of sovereignty and natural right. The article argues that it is necessary to pay attention to the dimension of popular sovereignty as a theoretical lacuna in dealing with contemporary sovereignty-human rights nexus within the UN Charter. Thus, it is essential to reclaim the Lockean-Vattelian ruled- or citizen-centric sovereignty-human rights nexus in order to address humanitarian emergencies in the contemporary world.

The Responsibility to Protect Questions and Answers?

The traditional Westphalian concept of sovereignty implies non-interference in the domestic affairs of a State by another State or group of States and finds expression in Article 2(7) of the Charter of the United Nations. The preoccupation with sovereignty evident in these provisions was very much the agenda of the twentieth century. As the twenty-first century began, however, questions were asked about the scope of concept of sovereignty not only as a result of the growing emergence of international human rights but, more significantly, the need for a more coordinated international response to various humanitarian crises of the 1990s. The focus on sovereignty had not prevented the UN from engaging in humanitarian intervention but what was different for the twenty-first century was the perceived need to establish a series of principles that would guide such intervention to ensure consistency in UN action. A starting point for this search for principles was the 2001 Report of International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), an initiative of the Canadian Government advocating the R2P principle. The Report is discussed in Part II, before the focus shifts to the UN with a discussion of the 2004 Report of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, the Secretary-General’s Report on the Millennium Declaration and the results of the 2005 World Summit which are all addressed in Part III. Part IV examines the implementation of the emerging principle both generally through the Resolutions of the Security Council on the protection of civilians and the application of R2P to the situations arising in Sudan, Myanmar/Burma, Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire and as a result of the Arab Spring. The Conclusion offers some answers to the questions arising from the responsibility to protect.

The responsibility to protect – An incoherent doctrine?

In this article, we depart from the emerging norm of responsibility to protect (R2P) and the ideal of coherence. We argue that coherence as an ideal is supported by philosophical as well as psychological arguments as a necessary universal condition for the rational credibility of a belief or a claim. The prominence of coherence as a criterion of rationality makes incoherence problematic – normatively, as well as pragmatically, especially regarding norms with great values at risk. It is argued in the article that the R2P represents such a norm as it aims to prevent grave violations of human rights. In this article, we therefore address troubling incoherence in the conceiving of this norm. To do so, we test the coherence of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) report, the content of which can be seen as a probable source of a future institutionalization of R2P. The result reveals a fundamental conflict in the report between the implications of R2P and the use in the report of the criteria guided approach often associated with Just War Theory, a conflict that undermines the legitimacy of the norm of R2P.

The feasibility of an expanded regime on the use of force: the case of the responsibility to protect

This article addresses the question of whether an expanded regime on the use of force, based on the report The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) of 2001, would be feasible. The formula of the R2P has since found its way into the United Nations machinery via the final resolution from the World Summit in 2005 and can be seen as an emerging and more permissive norm on the use of force in cases of humanitarian catastrophes. The question of whether or not the theoretical framework of the norm is feasible is therefore urgent. Our analysis of feasibility is based on three logics of human action: the logic of consequence, logic of appropriateness and logic of arguing. We argue that each of these logics contains aspects that must be observed before a regime can be considered feasible. These logics are coupled with three mechanisms of socialisation of norms: strategic calculation, role-playing and normative suasion. We construct a minimal standard for a feasible regime by deducing requirements from the logics and their mechanisms, and then apply that standard to the content of the ICISS report. The empirical results show that the report must address the fact that it lacks qualities in regard to all three logics, before the expanded regime can be considered feasible.

Anne Orford, International Authority and the Responsibility to Protect

Rwanda�s three-month 1994 genocide that killed 800,000 people was not prevented due to a failure of political will, not lack of military capacity. Then in Kosovo in 1999, NATO did take forceful action in the name of humanitarian intervention, but without UN authorization. Both incidents triggered legal and political controversies, as a consequence of which Secretary-General (SG) Kofi Annan pushed for a new doctrine which would allow the international community to take timely and effective action against humanitarian atrocities. In 2001 the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) formulated the innovative principle of the responsibility to protect (R2P)1 that spoke eloquently to the need to change the UN�s normative framework in line with the changed reality of threats and victims of the new century. Building on its report, in 2005, world leaders unanimously agreed that all states had the responsibility to protect people living in their territorial jurisdictions. Where governments were manifestly failing in their sovereign duty, the international community, acting through the UN, would take �timely and decisive� collective action to honour the international responsibility to protect people against atrocities. R2P is the normative instrument of choice to convert a shocked international conscience into effective collective action. It navigates the treacherous shoals between the Scylla of callous indifference to the plight of victims and the Charybdis of self-righteous interference in others� internal affairs. In 2011, Libya became the setting for the first application of the sharp edge of the new principle-cum-norm of the responsibility to protect through a UN Security Council-authorized international military intervention. While the military enforcement of the no-fly and no-drive zones by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies was mainly a successful application of R2P, it also generated considerable controversy over allegations that NATO exceeded the limitations set on the international intervention �

Regional Organizations and the Responsibility to Protect in the Context of the Arab Spring

Regional Organizations and the Responsibility to Protect in the Context of the Arab Spring

Be Careful What You Wish For: Changing Doctrines, Changing Technologies, and the Lower Cost of war

The collective security structure created by the UN Charter is becoming shakier than ever, and two recent trends pose particular challenges to Charter rules on the use of force. The first trend involves a normative shift in understandings of state sovereignty, and the second trend involves improvements in technology--specifically, the rapid evolution of unmanned aerial vehicles, precision weapons, and surveillance technologies. Each trend on its own raises difficult issues. Together, they further call into question international law's ability to meaningfully constrain the use of force by states. CHANGES IN NORMATIVE UNDERSTANDINGS OF SOVEREIGNTY The last two decades have seen a dramatic shift away from traditional ideas about state sovereignty. Increasingly, both legal scholars and national and international-level advocates and political decisionmakers have articulated an understanding of state sovereignty as limited and subject to what amounts to de facto waiver. In this vision of sovereignty, a state is required to execute certain responsibilities. If it to do so, external actors have a right and/or an obligation to step in themselves to ensure proper execution of these responsibilities. Versions of these arguments have emerged recently in two very different discourse communities. One is the human rights community, in which this vision of sovereignty is often couched in terms of atrocity prevention and the to protect. Parallel versions of this argument have also emerged from within the national security community. Here, the argument is generally couched in terms of state duties to prevent the export of terrorism. The Responsibility to Protect Let us start with the to protect. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the debates in the 1990s over humanitarian intervention had morphed into discussion of the responsibility to protect, or R2P, a doctrine initially developed by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). In a 2001 report, ICISS offered a starkly different understanding of sovereignty than that taken for granted prior to World War II: State sovereignty implies ... Where a population is suffering serious harm, as a result of internal war, insurgency, repression or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert it, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international to protect. (1) ICISS was careful to note that the use of military force to protect populations should be a last resort, and that any R2P-based military interventions should be authorized by the Security Council. But ICISS was unwilling to view Security Council authorization as an absolute requirement: If the Security Council rejects a proposal [to intervene to protect a population] or to deal with it in a reasonable time, alternative options ... [include] action within area of jurisdiction by regional or sub-regional organizations under Chapter VIII of the Charter, subject to their seeking subsequent authorization. (2) After all, warned ICISS, if the Council fails to discharge its to protect in conscience-shocking situations crying out for action ... concerned states may not rule out other means to meet the gravity and urgency of that situation. (3) Within a decade, the R2P concept had gained substantial traction throughout the international community. It was referenced in the 2005 UN World Summit Outcome Document, and in 2011, the Security Council referenced R2P in Resolution 1973, which authorized the use of force to protect civilians in Libya, as well as Resolution 1975, authorizing the use of force in Cote d'Ivoire. (4) While most post-ICISS elaborations of R2P have--for obvious reasons--tended to downplay the possibility of military interventions undertaken without Security Council authorization, the normative logic of R2P suggests that Security Council authorization should not be dispositive. …