The 'Responsibility to Protect' - Time to put things back into perspective

inherently, an overstretched agenda without clear-cut definitional boundaries which, as a result, paves the ground for conceptual misuse. Especially the latest achievement in the normative debate, the ‘Responsibility to Protect’-concept, is dubious and opens the door for abuse by ‘false friends’. After an impressing and fast-paving development/increase in meaning since its first introduction in 2001, this concept is widely seen as legitimate framework for current and future humanitarian engagement and as a replacement for the former concept of humanitarian intervention. 3 But, despite the good intentions behind that concept, many critical voices underscore conceptual weaknesses 4 or even inherent conceptual dangers of R2P. 5 Currently, as José E. Alvarez points out, R2P is at the turning point from political rhetoric to legal norm. 6 This paper aims on the examination of the value of R2P as recent object of normative debate and argues for more political realism among normative actors.

This paper proceeds as follows. First, I introduce the major features of the emerging normative agenda and their development during the 1990s. Second, I examine the conceptual basics and theoretical roots of the ‘Responsibility to protect’concept. Third, I explore the conceptual weaknesses and shortcomings of R2P. Fourth, I consider to what extend this concept might be, despite its limitations, useful for the political reality.

3 See e. g. Gareth Evans, The Responsibility to Protect, Washington D.C.: Brookings Institiution Press 2008.

4 See e. g. Ciaran J. Burke, Replacing the Responsibility to Protect: The euitable theory of humanitarian intervention, 1 Amsterdam Law Forum 2. Within his first Chapter under the headline ‘The Responsibility to Protect: A Frank Legal Assessment’, Burke offers an excellent analysis of the conceptual weaknesses of R2P.

5 Concerning the dangers, see especially: José E. Alvarez, The Schizophrenias of R2P, Panel Presentation at the 2007 Hague Joint Conference on Contemporary Issues of International Law, The Hague/Netherlands, June 2007 6 Ibid., p. 1

Normative developments towards R2P

“Normative developments and political reality are rarely in synch, however. Sometimes norm entrepreneurs scramble to keep up with events, and sometimes they are ahead of them.” 7

With the end of the Cold War, a new mentality or even approach concerning global politics and humanitarian concerns has been formed. During the early 1990s, some scholars identified the ‘end of history’, meaning the end of political competition and new era of peace and democracy. 8 Others underscored, in context to violent disintegrations and mass atrocities at that time, the moral need and even the duty to prevend/end large- scale human rights violations around the world through the international community. New concepts and political approaches emerged. The traditional notion of security, focused on military issues on a state-level, has been perceived as to narrow and outdated: “The concept of security has for too long been interpreted narrowly: as security of territory from external aggression, or as protection of national interests in foreign policy or as global security from the threat of nuclear holocaust…Forgotten were the legitimate concerns of ordinary people who sought security in their daily lives.” 9 Therefore, actors and activists of/for a Global Civil Society and multilateralism attempted to replace this narrow notion by introducing a much broader definition of security as such. A milestone toward such an approach, the so-called ‘Human Security’ concept, was coined within UNDP’s 1994 definition of human security:

“Human security can be said to have two main aspects. It means, first, safety from such chronic threats as hunger, disease and repression. And second, it means protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life – whether in homes, in jobs or in communities.” 10

7 Thomas G. Weiss, R2P after 9/11 and the World Summit, supra note 1, at 742, para 3. See generally on this topic, Martha Finnemore/Kathryn Sikkink, International Norm Dynamics and Political Change, 52 Int’l Org 887 (1998) 8 See Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, Free Press (1992) 9 United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report, 1994 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 22.

10 Ibid., p. 23.

This definition lacks indeed precision. In fact, following the UNDP’s way of argumentation, virtually any kind of unexpected or irregular discomfort – from economic, to food to health to environmental to personal to community to political (…) security – could conceivably constitute a threat to one’s human security. 11 However - although the human security concept emerged very fast and is somehow a conceptual complementary extreme compared to the security notions during the Cold War period – this very broad understanding developed quick and dominates today’s understanding of security. 12 Norms and values as guidelines in international relations, which were somehow undersubscribed during the Cold War period due to the dominance of strategic concerns, increased there meaning fundamentally since then. The international community or at least parts of it, started to feel morally responsible for on-going mass atrocities around the globe and for human security in general during the 1990s. As a result, the international community started to experiment with so-called ‘humanitarian interventions’ like for example in northern Iraq in 1991 and in Somalia in 1992. 13 In current research, the concept of humanitarian intervention is widely discussed and analyzed and very different definitions and understandings do exist.

Since the issue of humanitarian intervention is related to international law, political science, ethics and international relations, one come across different approaches and categorisations. Adam Roberts defines humanitarian intervention as a "military intervention in a state, without the approval of its authorities, and with the purpose of preventing widespread suffering or death among the inhabitants". 14 For Tonny Brems Knudsen, humanitarian intervention is "dictatorial or coercive interference in the sphere of jurisdiction of a sovereign state motivated or legitimated by humanitarian concerns". 15

11 For a distinguished and, especially, critical discussion of the ‘human security’ concept, see Roland Paris, Human Security – Paradigm Shift or Hot Air?, 26 International Security 2 (Fall 2001), pp. 87-102 12 Some scholars and/or official institutions tried to narrow the human security toward something less fuzzy.

13 See generally, Nicholas J. Wheeler, Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2000.

14 Adam Roberts, Humanitarian War: Military Intervention and Human Rights, International Affairs, Vol. 69, No. 3, July 1993, p. 426.

15 Tonny Brems Knudsen, Humanitarian Intervention Revisited: Post-Cold War Responses to Classical Problems, in Michael Pugh, The UN, Peace and Force, London, Frank Cass, 1997, p. 146.