The STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABEŞ-BOLYAI issue article summary

The summary of the selected article appears at the bottom of the page. In order to get back to the contents of the issue this article belongs to you have to access the link from the title. In order to see all the articles of the archive which have as author/co-author one of the authors mentioned below, you have to access the link from the author's name.

 
       
         
    STUDIA EUROPAEA - Issue no. 2 / 2017  
         
  Article:   THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT. FROM “EMERGING NORM” TO A FALSE PROMISE. A NEW CHALLENGE TO INTERNATIONAL SECURITY POLICY.

Authors:  ALEXANDRU C. APETROE .
 
       
         
  Abstract:  
DOI: 10.24193/subbeuropaea.2017.2.05

Published Online: 2017-06-30
Published Print: 2017-06-30

FULL PDF

ABSTRACT:
The meaning of RtoP (responsibility to protect) is self-explanatory, it shows what the international community (or at least some part of it) considers unacceptable in today’s world: genocide, ethnic cleansing and barbarous acts against civilians. However, the same international community stood silent when Rwanda and Srebrenica happened. Yet precisely because of the guilt and shame associated with its previous failures, the same international community managed to launch an initiative, ”responsibility to protect” (RtoP/R2P), in 2001. We insist on calling RtoP an “initiative”, not as a derogatory term, but as a counter-rhetoric argument to the so-called “RtoP emerging norm”. According to international law theory, a norm can be either customary (derogatory), either peremptory (jus cogens), there is no in-between option, particularly when interpreting the UN Charter provisions in relation with to the broad-spectrum of the principle of non-intervention as opposed to human rights (the area where RtoP tries to overstep the Charter’s authority). The main aspects of RtoP are, (1) on one count, the infringement on state-sovereignty (the “functional sovereignty” theory), particularly on the quality of the so-called “Westphalia-style” sovereignty, (2) the other being the clear purpose of the ICISS, above and beyond of ending mass-atrocities, which is the process of legalizing humanitarian intervention. After the 1999 Kosovo Intervention and during the early phases of the War on Terror, humanitarian intervention became seriously de-legitimised, this is why something novel was needed, which where RtoP stepped-in, riding on the hopes of many.

Keywords: humanitarian intervention, responsibility to protect, international law, state sovereignty, (non) interventionism, human rights.

Bibliography

ABC News (2017), “Raging Gaddafi orders forces to ''capture the rats''”, [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-02-23/raging-gaddafi-orders-forces-to-capture-the-rats/1953788], 3 March 2017
Adams, Simon (2017), “Failure to Protect: Syria and the UN Security Council”, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, Occasional Paper Series, No. 5, March 2015, [http://www.globalr2p.org/media/files/syriapaper_final.pdf], 3 March 2017
Badescu, C. G. (2011), Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: Security and Human Rights, Routledge Publishers.
BBC News (2017), “Islamic State: Egypt urges international intervention in Libya”, [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31494806], 3 March 2017
BBC News (2017), “Libya protests: Defiant Gaddafi refuses to quit”, [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-12544624], 3 March 2017
BBC News (2017), “Libya: Coalition divided on arming rebels”, [http://www. bbc.com/news/world-africa-12900706], 3 March 2017
Bellamy, Alex J. (2009), “Responsibility to Protect or Trojan Horse? The Crisis in Darfur and Humanitarian Intervention after Iraq”, in Joel H. Rosenthal, Christian Barry, (eds.), Ethics & International Affairs. A Reader, Third Edition, Georgetown University Press.
Bellamy, Alex J. (2010), “The Responsibility to Protect - Five Years On”, in Ethics and International Affairs, Issue 24, No. 2.
Bellamy, Alex J. (2015), The Responsibility to Protect: A Defense, Oxford University Press, First Edition, 2015.
Bellamy, Alex J. (2013), The Responsibility to Protect: Towards a “Living Reality”, Report written for the United Nations Association-UK, UNA-UK, 2013.
Besson, Samantha (2010), “Sources of International Law”, in Samantha Besson, John Tasioulas (eds.), The Philosophy of International Law, Oxford University Press.
Breakey, Hugh (2011), The Responsibility to Protect and the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflicts: Review and Analysis, Griffith University, May.
Cater, Charles; Malone, David M. (2017), “The origins and evolution of Responsibility to Protect at the UN”, in International Relations, Vol. 30(3), 2016, [http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0047117816659586], 3 March 2017
CNN’s Amanpour (2017), “Does the World Have the Right to Prevent Genocide?”, CNN Transcripts, October 28 2009, [http://transcript.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0910/28/ampr.01.html], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW0UTm6iY2M], 3 March 2017
Cunliffe, Philip (2007), “Sovereignty and the Politics of Responsibility”, in Bickerton, Christopher J., Cunliffe, Philip, Gourevitch, Alexander, (eds.), Politics without Sovereignty A critique of Contemporary International Relations, University College London Press, 2007.
Cunliffe, Philip (2017), “The doctrine of the ‘responsibility to protect’ as a practice of political exceptionalism”, in in European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 1, Issue 22, 2016,
[http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1354066116654956?journalCode=ejta], 3 March 2017
Dembinski, Matthias (2017), “Procedural justice and global order: Explaining African reaction to the application of global protection norms”, in European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 1, Issue 24, 2016, [http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1354066116681059? journalCode=ejta], 3 March 2017
Durham, Robert B. (2014), False Flags, Covert Operations, & Propaganda, First Edition.
Encyclopaedia Britannica (2017), “Srebrenica Massacre”, [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1697253/Srebrenica-massacre], 3 March 2017
Evans, Gareth (2006), “From Humanitarian Intervention to the Responsibility to Protect”, in Wisconsin International Law Journal, Vol. 24, No. 3.
Evans, Gareth (2009), “The Responsibility to Protect”, in Richard H. Cooper, Juliette Voïnov Kohlerin, (eds.), Responsibility to Protect The Global Moral Compact for the 21st Century, Palgrave Macmillan.
Evans, Gareth (2008), The Responsibility to Protect, Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All, Brookings Institution Press.
Genocide Watch (2017), “Sri Lanka”, [http://www.genocidewatch.org/srilanka.html], 3 March 2017
Global Research (2017), “Turkey Wages War on Syria: Leaked Recording Confirms Turkish “False Flag” Attack”, [http://www.globalresearch.ca/turkey-wages-war-on-syria-leaked-recording-confirms-turkish-false-flag-attack/5375807], 3 March 2017
Gourevitch, Alexander (2007), “National Insecurities. The new politics of the American National Interest”, in Bickerton, Christopher J., Cunliffe, Philip, Gourevitch, Alexander, (eds.), Politics without Sovereignty A critique of Contemporary International Relations, University College London Press.
Grant, John P.; Barker, J. Craig (2004), Parry and Grant Encyclopaedic Dictionary of International Law, Third Edition, Oxford University Press.
Hannes, Peltonen (2011), “Sovereignty as Responsibility, Responsibility to Protect and International Order: On Responsibility, Communal Crime Prevention and International Law”, in Uluslararası İlişkiler, Vol. 7, No. 28, Winter, 2011.
Hehir, Aidan (2011), “R2P and International Law” in Philip Cunliffe (ed.), Critical Perspectives on the Responsibility to Protect, Interrogating Theory and Practice, Taylor & Francis.
Hehir, Aidan (2010), “The Responsibility to Protect: ‘Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing’?”, in Sage Journals’ International Relations, Vol. 24, No. 2, June 2010.
Herța, Laura M. (2103), “Jus in Bello and the Solidarist Case for Humanitarian Intervention. From Theory to Practice”, in Studia Europæa, LVIII, Issue 1, March, 2013.
Hobson, Christopher (2017), “Responding to failure: The Responsibility to Protect after Libya”, in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 44, Issue 3, 2016, [http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0305829816640607], 3 March 2017
Holmes, John (2017), “Does the UN''s Responsibility to Protect necessitate an intervention in Syria?”, in The Guardian, 28 August 2013, [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/syria-intervention-un-responsibility-to-protect], 3 March 2017
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) (2001), The Responsibility to Protect, ICISS, Ottawa.
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) (2001), The Responsibility To Protect. Research, Bibliography, Background Supplementary Volume to the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignly, International Development Research Centre, Ottawa.
Ki-moon, Ban (2009), UN Secretary-General''s Report: Implementing the Responsibility to Protect, 2009, (A/63/677).
Kirgis, Fredric L. (2005), “International Law Aspects of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document”, in American Society of International Law, Vol. 9, Issue 30; (25.04.2015).
Kuperman, Alan J. (2009), “Review of Gareth Evans’ Responsibility to Protect”, in Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 124, No. 3, (Fall 2009).
Mahdavi, Mojtaba (2017), “A Postcolonial Critique of Responsibility to Protect in the Middle East”, in PERCEPTIONS, Spring 2015, Volume XX, Number 1, [http://sam.gov.tr/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/02_Mahdavi.pdf], 3 March 2017
Mill, John Stuart (2006), “A Few Words on Non-Intervention,” in ‘Fraser’s Magazine’, 1859 (first appeared), in Foreign Policy Perspectives, No. 8.
Norooz, Erfaun (2017), “Responsibility to Protect and its applicability in Libya and Syria”, Thesis, Vienna Journal on International Constitutional Law, Vol. 9, Issue 3, 2015, [https://www.icl-journal.com/download/ 1d60bf91da3f98e153088f67d3676e5a/ICL_Thesis_Vol_9_3_15.pdf], 3 March 2017
Orford, Anne (2011), International Authority and the Responsibility to Protect, Cambridge University Press.
Pattison, James (2010), Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect, Who Should Intervene?, Oxford University Press, 2010.
Pingeot, Louis; Obenland, Wolfgang (2014), In whose name? A critical view on the Responsibility to Protect, Global Policy Forum.
Rigano, Camilla (2017), RtoP and Cultural Heritage An analysis of the Responsibility to Protect Culture Heritage of an Outstanding Universal Value, Thesis, Department of Political Science, LUISS, 2016, [http://tesi.eprints.luiss.it/17596/1/073782_RIGANO_CAMILLA.pdf], 3 March 2017
Roberts, Adam (2017), The Yazidi and the Responsibility to Protect, Thesis, Department of International Studies and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon, June 2016, [https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/20521/Roberts_oregon_0171N_11609.pdf?sequence=1], 3 March 2017
Shaffer, Gregory C.; Pollack, Mark A. (2010), “Hard vs. Soft Law: Alternatives, Complements, and Antagonists in International Governance”, in Minnesota Law review, No. 94, Issue 706, 2010.
Steele, Jonathan (2017), “US must identify IS, not Assad, as the main enemy in Syria”, in Middle East Eye, 18 September 2015, [http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/us-must-identify-not-assad-main-enemy-syria-1955255349], 3 March 2017
Shaw, Malcom N. (2008), International Law, Sixth Edition, Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Thakur, Ramesh (2006), The United Nations, Peace and Security: From Collective Security to the Responsibility to Protect, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
The Economist (2017), “Libya’s Civil War, The four-year descent from Arab spring to factional chaos”, [http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21638123-four-year-descent-arab-spring-factional-chaos-it-should-come], 3 March 2017
The Guardian (2017), “Libya: Coalition bombing may be in breach of UN resolution''s legal limits”, [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/28/libya-bombing-un-resolution-law], 3 March 2017
The Hague Justice Portal, Srebrenica in Summary (2017), [http://www.haguejustice portal.net/index.php?i d=9564], 3 March 2017
The Independent (2017), “Boko Haram renames itself Islamic State''s West Africa Province”, [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/boko-haram-renames-itself-islamic-states-west-africa-province-iswap-as-militants-launch-new-offensive-against-government-forces-10204918.html], 3 March 2017
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (2017), “Reports", [http://www.icty.org/sections/AbouttheICTY/Reportsandpublications], 3 March 2017
The United Nations (2017), “Reports of the Secretary-General”: (A/64/864, 2010); (A/65/877–S/2011/393, 2011); (A/66/874–S/2012/578, 2012); (A/67/929–S/2013/399, 2013), [http://www.un.org/sg/speeches/reports/68/reports.html], 3 March 2017
The United Nations (2011), Security Council, Resolution 1970 (S/RES/1970 (2011)*), Resolution 1973 (S/RES/1973 (2011)).
Times of Malta (2017), “Gaddafi: ''I will not give up'', ''we will chase the cockroaches''”, [http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110222/local/gaddafi-in-fighting-speech-i-will-not-give-up.351487], 3 March 2017
United Nations General Assembly, 2005 World Summit Outcome, 2005, (A/60/L.1); The World Summit Outcome Document, 2005, (A/RES/60/1).
United Nations Security Council, “Resolutions”, [S/RES/1674 (2006); S/RES/1894 (2009); S/RES/1970 (2011); S/RES/1973 (2011); S/RES/2016 (2011); S/RES/2040 (2012); S/RES/2085 (2012); S/RES/2100 (2013)], [http://www.un.org/en/documents/ods/], 3 March 2017
United Nations (1951), United Nations Treaty Series, “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”, 1951.
Weiss, Thomas G.; Thakur, Ramesh (2010), Global Governance and the UN. An Unfinished Journey, Indiana University Press.
Wheeler, Nicholas J. (2017), “A Victory for Common Humanity? The Responsibility to Protect after the 2005 World Summit”, Journal of International Law & International Relations, Vol. 2, Issue 1, 2005, [http://www.jilir.org/docs/issues/volume_2-1/2-1_7_WHEELER_FINAL.pdf ], 3 March 2017
World without Genocide (2017), “Sri Lanka”, [http://worldwithoutgenoide.org/genocides-and-conflicts/sri-lanka], 3 March 2017.
 
         
     
         
         
      Back to previous page