The Arab Uprisings by Gelvin James L

Author:Gelvin, James L.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2012-08-19T04:00:00+00:00

What is “R2P”?

In 2005, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution establishing as an international norm a doctrine known as R2P (sometimes rendered RtoP)—responsibility to protect. In the wake of the multiple failures of humanitarian intervention in the 1990s (Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda), the international community formally recognized the principle that individual governments could not be allowed to abdicate the responsibility to protect their populations from atrocities, nor could they be permitted to commit those atrocities themselves. Furthermore, it agreed that ultimate responsibility to protect civilians rested with the international community, which has a number of options at its disposal to enforce compliance. These options run the gamut from sanctions and arms embargoes to military intervention. Security Council Resolution 1973, which authorized the air campaign against Qaddafi’s forces, explicitly invoked the doctrine, citing “the responsibility of the Libyan authorities to protect the Libyan population.” Although the Obama administration did not invoke the doctrine when it authorized American participation in the air campaign against Libya, Obama did use the phrase “responsibility to act” in his speech to the American people explaining his rationale for taking action. He specifically cited the brutality of the Qaddafi regime and its indiscriminate use of force against rebels and civilians alike.

Although the uprising in Libya amounted to the highest-profile test of R2P so far, it might also have provided the death knell for practical application of the doctrine. The Security Council passed Resolution 1973 to prevent, according to its backers, the impending massacre of innocents in Libya. Critics argue that the decision to take military action was made with undue speed, that the initial proposal to constitute a “no-fly zone” somehow expanded into a more open-ended military commitment, and that NATO intervention soon went beyond protecting civilians. It became, they argue, regime change hidden behind a humanitarian façade—the sort of precedent that permanent Security Council members Russia and China (both of which abstained during the vote on Resolution 1973) might just take to heart the next time the United States or one of its allies raises the issue of R2P.

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