by Shashika Lakshan
Published on The Morning on 28th March 2024.
Introduction
“Once late US president Abraham Lincoln said that you cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” - In 1864, in a letter to then-Secretary of War Edward Stanton
Conflict is a one of common facts among humans from the origin of mankind. Conflicts have become a common phenomenon within the 195 countries in the world. Crimes against humanity are committed by stakeholders in fierce conflicts. In similar fierce situations, the international community have a responsibility to assure the protection of humanity, especially from atrocity crimes. There are many concepts and theories which focus on conflicts and how and when the international community should interfere with the state. Among those concepts, Responsibility to Protect is a major pillar more of a doctrine rather than a concept and it is often discussed among the scholars. This doctrine basically reveals how the international community should interfere with a state if there is a threat for atrocity crimes including war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocides and ethnic cleansing. Before the R2P was introduced to the world in 2005, there were United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations throughout the world and one such example is the 1993 Somalia peacekeeping operation. In the 1990s, atrocities happened and crimes made a huge discourse among the scholars, global leaders, governmental and non-governmental institutes which led to the focus on conflict studies and humanitarian law . As a result of that the UN introduced the R2P in 2005 with the initiative of UN secretary general Kofi Annan. There are appreciations as well as negative criticisms from the scholars and respective researchers to R2P and here in this article, the motive is to find out the succession of the R2P doctrine.
Setting of R2P doctrine
Even Though the R2P was introduced in 2005 there is a long history related to the introduction of R2P. According to the global centre for responsibility to peace, R2P is defined as, “The Responsibility to Protect – known as R2P – is an international norm that seeks to ensure that the international community never again fails to halt the mass atrocity crimes of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.” There are three pillars of the R2P process.
When analysing the background for the R2P doctrine, it goes back to Westphalian treaties in 1648. These treaties marked the end of a protracted war for territorial borders among the European nations. Accordingly there are four basic assumptions which discouraged aggressiveness among the Europeans.
The foundation of Sovereignty emerged through westphalian treaties. R2P is a doctrine that is a justification to exceed the sovereignty of a state for the international community as a last resort when there is a threat of atrocity crimes.
Then the Hague Conventions also related with the R2P doctrine. There are two treaties which were signed in 1899 and 1907. These treaties established norms and customs in a strict manner by identifying and pointing out the rules that nations should follow during hostilities.
The Geneva Convention was adopted in 1949 after the second world war which killed thousands of civilians and created mass destruction . Its fourth Geneva Convention identified how nations should protect civilian rights and cultures during a conflict as well as in the post conflictual situations.
Until the 1990s decade the world order followed the principal policy of the Westphalian treaty, showing respect to the sovereignty of other states. However, some terrifying incidents that happened in this decade marked a huge black mark in humanity. In fact, the following two examples are the significant incidents among above mentioned terrifying incidents.
Rwandan genocide -
This conflict happened between two ethnic groups Hutu and Tutsi. This lasted for 100 days between April and July in 1994. More than a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) which was filled with Hutus. Eventhough there were UN Peacekeeping forces deployed, they were also unable to mitigate this genocide and lack of coordination and lack of resources were some reasons for that failure.
Srebrenica massacre -
Srebrenica was a town in Bosnia which was about 30 square miles. On 6 th April 1993, the UN security council passed resolution 819 that guaranteed the protection of Srebrenica town. Nonetheless, the Bosnian Serb soldiers attacked the security posts and captured the control of the town. Then they killed more than 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys. International community identify this as a genocide as well as an ethnic cleansing.
Response from international community against atrocity crimes
International community believed that they had a chance to mitigate these terrible tragedies. This fact made a huge discourse and questioned how the international community should interfere with internal conflicts within states when there are threats to commit atrocity crimes. Then the responsibility to protect doctrine was exposed to the world by the UN in 2005.When implementing R2P, there are few facts to consider.
The R2P was implemented during some conflicts after it was introduced. The Libyan conflict, the Syrian conflict are such major examples. The implication of R2P is done mostly by UN peacekeeping forces. Currently there are 11 peacekeeping missions done by the UN in Africa and the Middle East. These operations were not implemented under the R2P doctrine but we can see features of R2P doctrine within these operations. As an example, ensuring human rights, mitigation of violences, and continuation of the flow of humanitarian aid are some major objectives of Peacekeeping missions. Those objectives are so related with the R2P doctrine.
Challenges and criticisms
For everything there are good and bad, matters of positive as well as adverse in nature. It is the same for R2P doctrine as well. Considering challenges, there are few challenges that can be identified according to the comments of the international crisis group. When identifying these can be explained as follows,
I. Conceptual challenge
This challenge questions the scope of practical implementation of R2P doctrine and the limitations of it. When practically applying this doctrine, the limitations and boundaries might become unclear. As examples at what time this should be applied and how should it be terminated? Should this be applied at the last resort and if that is yes, how can the last resort be identified clearly?
II. Institutional challenge
The R2P process is applied through a combination of institutions like the United Nations(UN), United Nations PeaceKeeping Forces(UNPKF), World Health Organization(WHO) and local security authorities. In the practical appliance, there might be some occurrences of disagreements, miscommunications among institutions. That affects the relationship between the institutes and to the overall R2P process as well.
III. Political challenge
This challenge focuses on global and regional power dynamics and political order. Those power dynamics also can be affected for the R2P in practical appliances as an external factor. Under the cover of R2P, there can be hidden political desires of some states as well. This challenge made a huge criticism for R2P doctrine as well.
Non-aligned movement and G77 criticised R2P. According to that the R2P was used as a tool which powerful nations used to accomplish their desires and agendas. The main example for this is the Libyan R2P intervention. Libya was the first incident that the UN security council gave permission under the R2P doctrine for a military intervention. In February 2011 NATO led alliance made an intervention with the purpose of fighting against atrocity crimes done by Quaddafi’s forces and protecting civilians. However, according to the critics the purpose of intervention was hijacked into a “regime change”, to topple down the Quaddafi regime. (R2P factsheet by ReformtheUN.org/ Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect Occasional Paper Series No. 3, October 2012) Some argue R2P as a threat for the sovereignty of a state and that transforms a national state into a powerless.
Conclusion and recommendations
The argument on R2P made by the nonaligned movement is not relevant for all R2P operations. There is some truth about the Libya operation as it exceeded the limits of using proportional means. In Syria also R2P was applied against Bashar Al- Assad’s regime as the Assad regime used chemical weapons (U.S. President Donald Trump ordered an airstrike against the Syrian government in response to the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack.) This Syrian intervention was also criticised with the same argument which Libya was criticised for. But because of one or two single incidents we cannot say R2P is an unsuccessful doctrine. There are so many successful peacekeeping operations in the world which are relevant to R2P. As examples, the Central Republic of Africa, Mali and Haiti Peace operations are renowned. The argument of saying that R2P is a threat to sovereignty is also a baseless argument. Because the first pillar and second pillar of R2P is to support the sovereign state to manage the internal issues. Only in the third pillar the international community does their interventions. These challenges and critics are not only intrinsic characteristics to R2P but also for practical appliance of many geopolitical doctrines. The conceptual challenge can be solved by a proper understanding of the three pillars. Then the institutional challenge also can be solved by a process which is well organised and planned. That will increase the mutual connectivity among the institutions. Third, politics is a hard one to mitigate practically but it is not impossible to overcome. All need to do is establish a transparent control and monitoring institution for R2P which doesn’t allow external political interference.
There are few steps which can be taken as recommendations.
I. Strengthening domestic accountability - then sovereign states can stop atrocity crimes by themselves within the first two pillars of R2P without moving to the third pillar.
II. Empowering civil society engagements - establishing and empowering civil society institutions on Human rights, conflict resolution is a positive thing as they will increase and develop the social awareness on human rights and related sectors.
III. Enhancing international and regional cooperation - this will create a good mutual understanding and interconnectedness among the states. That will create norms, regulatory systems and transparency when doing international interventions and the “Just Cause and right intention” facts will be protected. Finally, the R2P doctrine is not a tool which ruins nations but, it is a tool which can fight for humanity. The only thing is the implementation process of R2P should be transparent and acceptable.
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* Mr. Shashika Lakshan is an Intern (Research)at the Institute of National Security Studies (INSS), the premier think tank on National Security established and functioning under the Ministry of Defence. The opinion expressed are his own and not necessarily reflective of the institute or the Ministry of Defence.