Critique and Alternatives to the Responsibility to
Protect
by
RICHARD JACKSON
The National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies
What is R2P?
• The RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT ("R2P") is a new international
security and human rights norm aimed at addressing the
international community’s failure to prevent and stop genocides,
war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity
• The norm was first suggested by the International Commission on
Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) in 2001
• R2P was officially adopted by the UN in 2005
• It is supported by the INTERNATIONAL COALITION FOR THE
RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT (ICRtoP) which brings together NGOs
from all regions of the world to strengthen normative consensus for
RtoP, further the understanding of the norm, push for strengthened
capacities to prevent and halt genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing
and crimes against humanity and mobilize NGOs to push for action
to save lives in RtoP country-specific situations.
The Responsibility to Protect stipulates:
• The state bears the primary responsibility to protect its populations from
genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This
responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes and violations, including
their incitement;
• The international community has a responsibility to assist and encourage
the state in fulfilling its protection obligations;
• The international community has a responsibility to take appropriate
diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means to help protect
populations from these crimes.
• The international community must also be prepared to take collective
action, in a timely and decisive manner, in accordance with the UN Charter,
on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional
organizations, if a state fails to protect its populations or is in fact the
perpetrator of crimes.
• Such action may entail coercive measures, including the collective use of
force, where appropriate, through the UN Security Council
Proposed precautionary principles to be considered
before authorizing military force:
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Right intention
Last resort
Proportional means
Reasonable prospects of success
The “right authority” (UN Security Council)
Just cause
NOTE: States rejected including these principles in the 2005
World Summit Outcome Document
What’s wrong with R2P?
• Its continuing unclear status in world politics – neither a law nor
fully a norm; an aspiration?
• It lacks clear triggers and thresholds for action
• It is internally inconsistent – the preventive measures (such as arms
control) undermine the reactive measures (the military capacity of
states to intervene)
• Its lack of widespread support – the Great Powers are suspicious of
its obligations, while small states fear its use as justification for
intervention and regime change
• The danger (and record) of selectivity and vulnerability to Great
Power manipulation – P5 self-interest and the veto
• It is primarily reactive to crises – the preventive elements have
remained largely inactive; the reaction paradigm is an obstacle to
prevention (a logic and practice trap)
• Existing (and stronger) international norms conflict with the R2P
norm – for example, state sovereignty and non-interference in
internal affairs, the right of national self-defence
What’s wrong with R2P?
• It is state centric – the responsibility for protection lies with states
and coalitions of states; the free-rider problem; in this formulation,
states are both the problem and the solution
• Ultimate reliance on violence – paradoxically, it reinforces the norm
of employing violence to resolve crises; it implies continued military
capabilities for states and the legitimacy of resort to force
• It creates and maintains problematic distinctions between greater
and lesser violence, good and bad violence, and worthy and
unworthy victims
• Status quo oriented – it leaves the global structures which create
violence (including states) untouched; it balances too strongly
towards state sovereignty
• It’s dismal empirical record of failure and record of abuse
• R2P is not the solution to the failures of the international
community – it’s a Band-Aid on a fatally wounded system; R2P is a
recognition that existing IHL has failed
Questioning the paradigm of just war
and humanitarian intervention
• Just war theory is morally inconsistent in its separation of
justice of war (jus ad bellum) and justice in war (jus in bello)
• Just war elevates the political community (the nation state) to
the highest good over the rights and survival of individuals
• Just war creates two separate moral spheres (war versus
peace) in which different moral standards apply
• Just war raises intentions to a higher moral status than actions
• Just war reinforces the very conditions which make war likely
in the first place – separate nation-states who possess the
right of self-defence
Questioning the paradigm of just war and
humanitarian intervention
• Just war makes it easier for states to engage in wars – in
practice, war is rarely the “last resort”; there are effective
alternatives to violent resistance or enforcement
• Just war has empirically failed to regulate the conduct of war
• Just war is no longer relevant to modern warfare and
insecurity, and there is no objective agreement on what
constitutes “war”
• There is no agreement on “right authority” for war
• Empirically, modern weapons have made discrimination,
proportionality and protection of civilians impossible
• The implicit view that violence can be used as a morally
neutral, and rational and predictable tool of policy (like a
surgical scalpel) is theoretically and empirically incorrect
Alternatives to R2P?
• New thinking beyond the confines of the paradigm – long-term
versus short-term; optimism for change; multiple levels of action
and struggle for change rather than silver bullets; thinking
preventively – breaking the cycle of reaction; thinking beyond the
Weberian state
• The success of nonviolence and nonviolent alternatives to use of
force – preventive deployment; unarmed peacekeepers; policing;
nonviolent accompaniment
• Diplomacy, dialogue and mediation – the need for resources and
investment to comparable levels of defence spending
• Looking beyond track I to citizen-based diplomacy and initiatives
• Research and training on nonviolent alternatives
• Early warning and prevention rather than reaction – arms control,
demilitarisation of politics, social justice
• Justice and a global legal-normative human rights order – the ICC,
regional justice mechanisms
• Building resilience in local contexts