The responsibility to protect and the problem of military intervention

International Affairs

Volumn 84, Issue 4, 2008, Pages

  Bellamy, Alex J ^a,b  

^a Department of International Relations ^*

^b UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 48049118762     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: 14682346     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2008.00729.x     Document Type: Article

References (129)

1. On a failed Canadian attempt to secure a technical General Assembly resolution on R2P in 2002, see Maria Banda, 'The responsibility to protect: moving the agenda forward', paper prepared for the UN Association of Canada, March 2007, p. 10; World Federalist Movement, 'Civil society meeting on the responsibility to protect', final report, Geneva, 28 March 2003, p. 9. See also UN General Assembly, '2005 summit outcome', A/60/L.1, 20 Sept. 2005, paras 138-9. On the impact of the war in Iraq, see Gareth Evans, "When is it right to fight?' Survival 46:3,2004, pp. 59-82 ;
2. Alex J. Bellamy, 'A responsibility to protect or a Trojan horse? The crisis in Darfur and humanitarian intervention after Iraq', Ethics and International Affairs 19: 2, 2005, pp. 31-54.
3. Ban Ki-moon, 'Annual address to the General Assembly', 25 Sept. 2007, SG/SM/11182.
4. The Williams Report, Report of the High-Level Mission on ate situation of human rights in Darfur pursuant to Human Rights Council decision S-4/101, A/HRC/4/80, 7 March 2007, paras 19-20.
5. See Roger Cohen, 'African genocide averted', New York Times, 3 March 2008.
6. These cases are examined at length in Alex J. Bellamy, 'Realizing the responsibility to protect', International Studies Perspectives, forthcoming 2009.
7. See the positions of Algeria and Egypt, S/PV.5319 (Resumption 1), 9 Dec. 2005, pp. 3 and 6. See also Gareth Evans, 'The responsibility to protect : an idea whose time has come . . . and gone?', lecture to the David Davies Memorial Institute, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, 23 April 2008.
8. See Fifth Committee of the General Assembly, GA/AB/3837, 4 March 2008. It should be noted that Edward Luck was not obliged to seek the support of the Fifth Committee because his is not a salaried position. Luck wisely chose to expose himself to scrutiny in the committee in order to win crucial political support for his mandate.
9. See Gareth Evans, 'The responsibility to protect'; Fifth Committee of the General Assembly, GA/AB/3837, 4 March 2008.
10. This sentiment has been expressed to the author by foreign affairs officials from two member states that are prominent supporters of R2P.
11. This phrase was first suggested to the author by Thomas Weiss, who served as director of the ICISS research directorate. Weiss argued that the R2P concept emerged from the World Summit 'relatively intact' but that because the summit closed off the possibility of intervention not authorized by the Security Council it could be considered 'R2P lite'. See Thomas G. Weiss, Humanitarian intervention: ideas in action (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), pp. 116-17. The term is also used by Don Hubert, who worked with Weiss in the ICISS research directorate.
12. This position has been very commonly expressed by governments. When the Security Council first discussed R2P, at its 2002 retreat, the Chinese insisted that all questions relating to the use of force defer to the Security Council and Russian diplomats argued that by countenancing unilateral intervention, R2P risked undermining the UN Charter. See Yevgeny Primakov, 'UN process, not humanitarian intervention, is world's best hope', New Perspectives Quarterly, 2 Sept. 2004, wwwdigitalnpq.org/global_services%20viewpoint/02- 09-04Primakov.html;
13. Jennifer M. Welsh, 'Conclusion: humanitarian intervention after n September', in Jennifer M. Welsh, ed., Humanitarian intervention and international relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 176-88.
14. Likewise, in 2005 India's ambassador to the UN insisted that 'we do not believe that discussions on the question [of R2P] should be used as a cover for conferring any legitimacy on the so-called "right of humanitarian intervention" or making it the ideology of some kind of "military humanism'" : statement by Mr Nirupam Sen, permanent representative, at the informal thematic consultations of the General Assembly on the Report of the Secretary-General entitled In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all (A/59/2005) (on Cluster III issues: 'Freedom to live in dignity'), 20 April 2005.
15. See the reports on 'Regional roundtables and national consultations' in Thomas G. Weiss and Don Hubert, The responsibility to protect: research, bibliography, background (supplementary volume) (Ottawa : International Development Research Centre, 2001), pp. 349-98.
16. Examples of this include Alicia L. Bannon, 'The responsibility to protect: the UN World Summit and the question of unilateralism', Yale Law Journal 115: 5, 2006, pp. 1156-05.
17. Stephen John Stedman, 'UN transformation in an era of soft balancing', International Affairs 83: 5, Sept. 2007, pp. 933, 938.
18. 'World fears for plight of Myanmar cyclone victims', New York Times, 13 May 2008.
19. See Weiss, Humanitarian intervention, p. 106.
20. One of the principal aims of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, created in February 2008, is to clarify the circumstances in which non-consensual military force might be legitimate. See also Gareth Evans, 'Responsibility to protect in 2007 : five thoughts for policy makers', presentation at a panel discussion at the UN, New York, 13 April 2007; Marc Saxer, 'The politics of responsibility to protect', Friedrich Ehert Stiftung briefing paper, Berlin, April 2008, pp. 5-6.
21. A third root, recently invoked by France in relation to the cyclone in Myanmar /Burma, is the 'right to interfere' developed by Bernard Kouchner from the late 1980s. See B. Kouchner and M. Betatti, Le Devoir d'ingérence: peut-on laisser mourir? (Paris : Denoël, 1987). Although Kouchner's ideas are innovative and interesting, there is little evidence to suggest that they influenced either Deng and Cohen or the ICISS.
22. Alan J. Kuperman, "The moral hazard of humanitarian intervention: lessons from the Balkans', International Studies QuarteAy 52: 1, 2008, pp. 49-80.
23. A problem identified by Alex de Waal in relation to Darfur. See Alex de Waal, 'Darfur and the failure of the responsibility to protect', International Affairs 83: 6, Nov. 2007, pp. 1039-54.
24. For an excellent account of the IDP problem and the work of Deng and Cohen, see Thomas G. Weiss and David A. Korn, Internal displacement: conceptualization and its consequences (New York : Routledge, 2006).
25. Weiss, Humanitarian intervention, p. 90.
26. Francis M. Deng, 'The impact of state failure on migration', Mediterranean Quarterly 15 -4, Fall 2004, p. 18.
27. Deng, 'Impact of state failure on migration', p. 20.
28. Francis M. Deng, 'Divided nations: the paradox of national protection', Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 603, Jan. 2006, p. 218.
29. Roberta Cohen and Francis M. Deng, Masses in flight: the global crisis of internal displacement (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 1998), p. 275.
30. Deng, 'Impact of state failure on migration', p. 20.
31. Francis M. Deng, Sadikiel Kimaro, Terrence Lyons, Donald Rothchild and I. William Zartman, Sovereignty as responsibility: conflict management in Africa (Washington DC : Brookings Institution, 1996), p. 1.
32. Deng et al., Sovereignty as responsibility, p. 28.
33. See Roberta Cohen, 'The guiding principles on internal displacement : an innovation in international standard setting', Global Governance 10: 3, 2004, pp. 459-80;
34. Roberta Cohen, 'Developing an international system for internally displaced persons', International Studies Perspectives 7: 1, 2006, pp. 87-101.
35. Principles 3 and 25 of the 'Guiding principles on internal displacement'. For a detailed explanation and commentary, see Walter Kalin, 'Guiding principles on internal displacement: annotations', American Society of International Law Studies in Transnational Legal Policy, 32, 2000.
36. Cohen, 'The guiding principles', p. 470.
37. Weiss and Korn, Internal displacement, pp. 74-5.
38. International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The responsibility to protect (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2001), p. 9;
39. Kofi Annan, 'Annual Report of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly', 20 Sept. 1999.
40. Lloyd Axworthy, 'Human rights and humanitarian intervention', address, Washington DC, 16 June 2000; Lloyd Axworthy, Navigating a new world: Canada's global future (Toronto: Knopf, 2003), p. 191.
41. ICISS, Responsibility to protect, p. xi.
42. See World Federalist Movement and International Policy Group, Civil society perspectives on the responsibility to protect, final report, 30 April 2003; Noel M. Morada, 'R2P roadmap in southeast Asia: challenges and prospects', UNISCI (Research Unit on International Security and Cooperation, Universidad Complutense, Madrid) discussion papers 11, May 2006.
43. UN Security Council Resolution 1674 (2007).
44. United Nations General Assembly, '2005 summit outcome', A/60/L.1, 20 Sept. 2005, paras 138-9.
45. I develop this point in more detail and relate it to US Ambassador John Bolton's position on R2P in Alex J. Bellamy, Responsibility to protect: the global effort to end mass atrocities (Cambridge: Polity, forthcoming 2009), ch. 3.
46. See Edward C. Luck, 'The responsible sovereign and the responsibility to protect', Annual review of United Nations affairs 2006/2007 (New York : Oxford University Press, 2008), vol. 1, pp. xxxiii-xliv.
47. The quote is from Saxer, 'The politics of responsibility to protect', p. 6.
48. Nicholas J. Wheeler, 'Legitimating humanitarian intervention : principles and procedures', Melbourne Journal of International Law 2: 2, 2001, p. 566.
49. See e.g. Independent International Commission on Kosovo, Kosovo report: conflict, international response, lessons learned (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2000), opening summary. This line of reasoning is also developed later in the report.
50. Ramesh Thakur, The United Nations, peace and security: from collective security to the Responsibility to Protect (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 260.
51. Ramesh Thakur, 'A shared responsibility for a more secure world', Global Governance 11: 3, 2005, p. 284.
52. Ramesh Thakur, 'Iraq and the responsibility to protect', Behind the Headlines 62:1, 2004, pp. 1-16.
53. Welsh, 'Conclusion', p. 180. This led prominent observers to write in 2004 that 'the Bush administration does not and will not accept the substance of the report or support any formal declaration or resolution about it' : S. Neil Macfarlane, Carolin J. Thiekling and Thomas G. Weiss, 'The responsibility to protect: is anyone interested in humanitarian intervention?', Third World Quarterly 25: 5, 2004, p. 983.
54. The United States did not change its position on criteria. See Sir Adam Roberts, "The United Nations and humanitarian intervention', in Welsh, ed., Humanitarian intervention, p. 90.
55. Primakov, 'UN process, not humanitarian intervention, is world's best hope'.
56. Welsh, 'Conclusion', p. 204, n. 4.
57. See 'British PM urges tougher stance against brutal regimes', Agence France-Presse, 14 July 2003 ; Kevin Ward, 'Process needed so countries know when to intervene to protect human rights', CBS (Canada), 13 July 2003.
58. 'Civil society meeting on the responsibility to protect', final report, Ottawa, 8 April 2003, p. 9.
59. UN High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, A moresecure world: our shared responsibility, A/59/565, 2 Dec. 2004, para. 203; Kofi Annan, 'In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all', A/59/2005, 21 March 2005, para. 126.
60. William R. Pace and Nicole Deller, 'Preventing future genocides : an international responsibility to protect', World Order 36: 4, 2005, p. 25.
61. African Union Executive Council, 'The common African position on the proposed reform of the United Nations', ext/EX.CL/2(VII), Addis Ababa, 7-8 March 2005, sec. B (i).
62. Pace and Deller, 'Preventing future genocides', p. 28.
63. Memo from Allan Rock to the author, 12 Nov. 2007.
64. This is a good example of a 'moral limit' in international politics. For a thorough investigation of moral limits, see Richard M. Price, ed., Moral limit and possibility in world politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
65. On the post-2005 'revolt against R2P' see Bellamy, 'Realizing the responsibility to protect'.
66. 'Position paper of the People's Republic of China on the United Nations reforms', 8 June 2005.
67. See Jeffrey Boutwell, 'Report on the Pugwash Study Group on Intervention, Sovereignty and International Security meeting', Venice, Italy, 10-11 Dec. 1999; Weiss and Hubert, The responsibility to protect, supplementary volume, pp. 351-2; Welsh, 'Conclusion'; Wheeler, 'Legitimating humanitarian intervention'.
68. See Simon Chesterman, Just war or just peace? Humanitarian intervention and international law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 221.
69. Alex J. Bellamy, 'A responsibility to protect or a Trojan horse?'
70. Gareth Evans's International Crisis Group argued not. See International Crisis Group, 'Getting the UN into Darfur', Africa Briefing 43, 12 Oct. 2006, pp. 15-17. Others, such as Eric Reeves and Samantha Power, disagree with this perspective.
71. Susan C. Breau, 'The impact of responsibility to protect on peacekeeping', Journal of Conflict and Security Law 11: 3, 2007, pp. 450-52;
72. Victoria K. Holt and Tobias C. Berkman, The impossible mandate? Military preparedness, the responsibility to protect and modern peace operations (Washington DC: Henry L. Stimson Center, 2006), pp. 201-224.
73. Nicholas J. Wheeler and Justin Morris, 'Justifying the Iraq War as a humanitarian intervention: the cure is worse than the disease', in Ramesh Thakur and Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu, eds, The Iraq crisis and world order (Tokyo: UN University Press, 2006), p. 460.
74. Bellamy, 'A responsibility to protect or a Trojan horse?'; Paul D. Williams and Alex J. Bellamy, 'The responsibility to protect and the crisis in Darfur', Security Dialogue 36: 1, 2005, pp. 27-47.
75. See e.g. Richard B. Lillich, ed., Humanitarian intervention and the United Nations (Charlottesville, VA : University Press of Virginia, 1973).
76. Tony Blair, 'Doctrine of the international community', speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, Hilton Hotel, Chicago, 22 April 1999. See John Kampfner, Blair's wars (London : Free Press, 2003), pp. 50-53 ;
77. Wheeler, 'Legitimating humanitarian intervention', p. 564 and n. 51.
78. IICK, Kosovo report, opening summary.
79. Nicholas J. Wheeler, Saving strangers: humanitarian intervention in international society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 279;
80. Michael Byers, War law: international law and armed conflict (London : Atlantic Books, 2005), p. 101.
81. For the full range of views on Kosovo, see Albrecht Schnabel and Ramesh Thakur, eds, Kosovo and the challenge of humanitarian intervention: selective indignation, collective action and international citizenship (Tokyo : UN University Press, 2000).
82. For a discussion of borderline legitimacy judgements in relation to intervention, see Ian Clark, Legitimacy in international society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 199-205.
83. Thakur, The United Nations, peace and security, p. 260.
84. Wheeler, Saving strangers, pp. 208-41.
85. A problem identified by de Waal in 'Darfur and the failure of the responsibility to protect'.
86. Kofi Annan, 'We the peoples': the role of the United Nations in the twenty-first century, A/54/2000, 27 March 2000, para. 216.
87. Kuperman, 'The moral hazard'.
88. See Roberto Belloni, 'The tragedy of Darfur and the limits of the "responsibility to protect'", Ethnopolitics 5 : 4, 2004, pp. 327-46.
89. A call issued by Ramesh Thakur and Thomas G. Weiss, 'R2P: from idea to norm-and action?', Global Responsibility to Protect 1:1, forthcoming 2009.
90. Kuperman, "The moral hazard', p. 73.
91. For instance, MINUSTAH and UNOCI in Haiti and Côte d'Ivoire respectively. See Thomas Weiss, 'The sunset of humanitarian intervention? The responsibility to protect in a unipolar era', Security Dialogue 35:2, 2004, pp. 135-53
92. J Michael Byers, 'High ground lost on UN's responsibility to protect', Winnipeg Free Press, 18 Sept. 2005, p. B3.
93. See Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, 'Burma briefing: Cyclone Nargis and the responsibility to protect', 17 May 2008, p. 7.
94. Luck, 'The responsible sovereign'. Gareth Evans argues that the sorts of capacities needed are those that well-functioning states use as a matter of habit. See Gareth Evans, Cooperating for peace: the global agenda for the 1990s and beyond (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1993).
95. De Waal, 'Darfur and the failure of the responsibility to protect'.
96. The principal example pointed to by de Waal was a report by the International Crisis Group: ICG, To save Darfur, ICG report 105, 17 March 2006.
97. De Waal, 'Darfur and the failure of the responsibility to protect', p. 1043.
98. De Waal, 'Darfur and the failure of the responsibility to protect', p. 1044.
99. In 2004 de Waal argued that foreign troops could make a 'formidable difference' to the lives of Darfuri civilians, writing that 'The immediate life and death needs of Darfur's people cannot wait for these negotiations to mature. A British brigade could make a formidable difference to the situation. It could escort aid supplies into rebel-held areas, and provide aerial surveillance, logistics and back-up to ceasefire monitoring, helping to give Darfurian villagers the confidence to return to their homes and pick up their lives' : Alex de Waal, 'Darfur's deep grievances defy all hopes for an easy solution', Observer, 25 July 2004.
100. The following passage draws on Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, 'Burma briefing no. 2 : Cyclone Nargis and the responsibility to protect', 17 May 2008.
101. 'World fears for plight of Myanmar cyclone victims', New York Times, 13 May 2008.
102. See Ivo Daalder and Paul Stares, 'The UN's responsibility to protect', International Herald Tribune, 13 May 2008.
103. The 'Kosovo proposal' was set out in Andrew O'Neil, 'Kosovo aid the model', The Australian, 14 May 2008.
104. See Security Council report, Update report: Myanmar, no. 4, 14 May 2008.
105. Julian Borger and Ian MacKinnon, 'Bypass junta's permission for aid, US and France urge', Guardian, 9 May 2008.
106. Britain later backtracked somewhat, indicating that it would welcome 'discussion' of the responsibility to protect : 'World fears for plight of Myanmar cyclone victims', New York Times, 13 May 2008.
107. Luck, 'The responsible sovereign'.
108. These, and other, measures are discussed in detail in Bellamy, Responsibility to protect.
109. Independent Commission, Report of the independent inquiry into the actions of the United Nations during the 10.04 genocide in Rwanda, 12 Dec. 1999, p. 2.
110. See K. Månsson, 'Integration of human rights in peace operations : is there an ideal model?', International Peace-keeping 13: 4, 2006, pp. 547-63.
111. Briefing by Jean-Marie Guélienno, Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping Affairs to the UN Security Counci).
112. Citizens for Global Solutions, 'United Nations Emergency Peace Service : one step towards effective genocide prevention' (New York: 2008), p. 68.
113. On the links between this mandating practice and R2P, see Breau, 'The impact of responsibility to protect on peacekeeping', esp. pp. 450-2.
114. UN Security Council Resolution 1590, 24 March 2005.
115. UN Security Council Resolutions 1509,19 Sept. 2003, and 1528, 27 Feb. 2004, respectively.
116. UN Security Council Resolution 1565, 1 Oct. 2004. For a discussion see K. Minsson, 'Use of force and civilian protection: peace operations in the Congo', International Peacekeeping 12: 4, 2005, pp. 503-519.
117. Holt and Berkman, The impossible mandate?, pp. 201-224.
118. See Victoria K. Holt, The responsibility toprotect: considering the operational capacity for civilian protection (Washington DC: Henry L. Stimson Center, 2005);
119. Holt and Berkman, The impossible mandate?.
120. Thomas G. Weiss, 'The humanitarian impulse', in David M. Malone, ed., The UN Security Council: from the Cold War to the 21st century (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienuer, 2004), p. 48.
121. D. S. Blocq, 'The fog of UN peacekeeping : ethical issues regarding the use of force to protect civilians in UN operations', Journal of Military Ethics 5:3, 2006, p. 205.
122. Holt and Berkman, The impossible mandate?, p. 52.
123. UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations peacekeeping operations: principles and guidelines, 18 Jan. 2008, para. 42.
124. The so-called holy trinity. See Alex J. Bellamy, Paul D. Williams and Stuart Griffin, Understanding peacekeeping (Cambridge : Polity, 2004).
125. Holt and Berkman, The impossible mandate?, p. 190.
126. Holt and Berkman, The impossible mandate?, p. 165.
127. UN Security Council Resolution 1592, March 2005.
128. Holt and Berkman, The impossible mandate?, pp. 166-7.
129. Human Security Report Project, Human Security Brief 2007, pp. 22-30.