A Failure to Rise to the Occasion: Syria and the Future of “Responsibility to Protect”
By Jennifer Ginsburg
The principle of “Responsibility to Protect” attempted to create a legal framework for international action in the name of humanitarianism, as the idea of intervention violates the principles of national sovereignty and territorial integrity outlined in the United Nations’ charter. Adopted in 2006, the doctrine claims that sovereignty is a responsibility, not a right, and if a state fails its primary duty of protecting its citizens, the international community has an obligation to step in. It sought to replace the concept of “right to intervene,” the idea which justified the NATO intervention in the Balkans in 1999, and to provide a path under international law to address human rights grievances. R2P emphasizes non-military methods, although the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) can authorize force as a last resort. Although the Syrian civil war would seem an obvious case for invoking the R2P doctrine – with over one hundred thousand casualties, two million refugees who have fled, millions of displaced persons inside the country, and chemical weapon usage – there has been no international consensus on a course of action. The failure of the Security Council to invoke “Responsibility to Protect” in its addressing of the Syrian conflict, due in part to the conflicting perspectives and interests of its members, challenges the real-world plausibility of such a doctrine and sets a precedent that bodes ill for the future of humanitarian intervention.
Advocates for the norm hoped it would create an opening for humanitarian action disconnected from geopolitical or security objectives, but the situation in Syria demonstrates that states cannot easily compartmentalize their interests. Because of the consequences of using force, humanitarianism alone is not enough to compel such action. Thus, when the members of the UNSC weigh the possibility of intervention, multiple objectives must be within reach to justify the military action, but the variance in members’ interests impedes the Security Council from coming to such agreements. The United States, Russia, China, England, and France (the P5) hold permanent seats and veto power on the UNSC and have the final say in authorization of force, honors granted as virtue of their victory in the Second World War. In theory the members of the Security Council work together to promote international peace and security, but in reality if one of the P5 sees it in their best interest to veto such action, the UNSC cannot move forward.
Aside from the unavoidable conflict of geo-political interests that go along with great power politics, the idea of intervention has different connotations for the different P5 countries. Humanitarian intervention arose as new norm in the post-Cold War world as the world order shifted and the chance of conventional clashes between the great powers decreased. For the United States, the idea came of age at a time when the U.S. was redefining its grand strategy and looking for a replacement for the long-held policy of containment.vi Because of American exceptionalism, U.S. foreign policy tends to include the spreading of American values, such as the idea of democracy and the universality of basic rights, and the U.S. public would like to see a world free of human rights abuses. After 1991 U.S. foreign policymakers were able to choose cases of military deployment on a case-by-case basis, influenced by a variety of variables, among them strategic interests and domestic public support, and as a result, humanitarianism entered the rationale for justifying military action abroad. France and Britain frequently vote with the U.S., as a result of a shared history and shared values.
Russia’s approach to intervention and international law stands in contrast to that of the U.S. From the Russian Civil War (1918-1922) which is viewed as an intervention of fourteen capitalist countries against the first state of workers and peasants, to the Second World War against “Nazi interventionists” to the Cold War, when interventions were planned and carried out by “imperialist and reactionary forces” (Korea, Egypt, Congo, Vietnam, etc.), aversion to intervention runs deep in Russian historical memory and political culture. The Kremlin does not frame its use of force on the international stage with interventionary language and there is little appetite domestically – among the populace or in the government – for such international action. There is
skepticism of the motivations behind such interventions, which are widely viewed as the forceful imposition of Western values, such as democratic governance or Eurocentric human rights ethics, abroad.
Russia also fears that supporting humanitarian interventions could set a dangerous precedent, not just for itself, but for the international order. Russia believes strongly in the supremacy of the UN system, as holding a permanent seat on the Security Council is one of the few ways post-Soviet Russia can exert influence in the international arena. When Russian President Putin was first formulating his foreign policy in 2000 before he was elected, he wrote that “it is inadmissible, under the slogan of so called humanitarian intervention, to cancel such basic principles of international law as sovereignty and the territorial integrity of states” and that humanitarianism is used “to justify unilateral forceful actions circumventing the UN Security Council.”Because humanitarian catastrophes, especially those with ethnic dimensions, are seen as legitimate grounds (or pretexts) for intervention, and such scenarios are not at all implausible in Russia, the fear that one day Russia could be the target of such an intervention is not unfounded. The P5 countries dislike standing alone as the sole veto in Security Council votes, and thus try to convince another member to vote with them. Russia and China frequently vote together, in part because of shared concerns over setting dangerous precedents and a shared distaste for meddling in the domestic politics of other countries.
The NATO-led intervention in Libya in 2011 invoked R2P and was authorized by the UN Security Council, and although the West claimed a success, the international community saw things differently. The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1973 to allow no-fly zone to be established in Libya with the purpose of protecting civilians. Yet when the air strikes led to an ousting of Qaddafi, Russia and China, who had abstained from voting, quickly claimed that the NATO-led coalition overstepped its bounds by changing the objectives of the intervention from humanitarianism to regime change. Today Libya is characterized as a failed state and the region destabilized by arms proliferation from the conflict, and it is debatable whether the humanitarian situation – the reason for engagement in the first place – has improved from when Qaddafi was in power. The feeling of betrayal at the alteration of objectives and the destabilizing effects from the intervention heightened suspicions of Western interventionist agendas and weakened support for the norm.
The invocation of R2P to authorize the Libyan intervention and the absence of R2P from discussions regarding Syria show that when humanitarian interventions are low-risk ventures that also further interests, the international community proceeds forward; yet when the situation is complicated and such an endeavor high-risk, action falters. It is possible that the Libya case should be considered an exception rather than a rule when it comes to analyzing humanitarian interventions, as it offered a unique conglomeration of factors conducive to international action in a way very different than Syria. The NATO action in Libya was a direct response to the imminent storming of Benghazi by Qaddafi’s forces which was predicted to be a massacre. To a public tired of U.S. military involvement in the Middle East, President Obama presented the Libyan intervention as an intersection of American values and interests– values in that such action would prevent “violence on a horrific scale” and interests in that the U.S. enjoyed “a unique ability to stop that violence” in the sense that it could do so without putting American troops on the ground. Libya offered the U.S. a chance to act with broad international support, including that of Arab countries, and to further its broader regional interests, which at the time meant supporting the peaceful protest movements of the Arab Spring. Russia chose to abstain rather than veto, because although then-Prime Minister Putin vehemently opposed the action, labeling it a “crusade,” then-President Medvedev said Russia’s decision meant that it would refuse to actively enforce the no-fly zone but did not consider the resolution fundamentally wrong.The decision was influenced by the fact that Russia valued its relations with the major European powers (such as France, who supported the resolution) over its limited interests in Libya and did not want to be seen as Qaddafi’s defender.
The search for conflict resolution in Syria is complicated by a number of factors, among them the dimensions of the civil war, the more deeply entrenched interests of the P5 countries, and a mistrust of western intentions in the wake of Libya. As result of such, R2P has been conveniently ignored. The UN Secretary General briefed the UNSC on the deteriorating situation in Syria on April 27, 2011, but five more months passed before the Council convened formally. France, Germany, Portugal, and the UK tried to pass a non-coercive resolution “strongly condemning” the uses of force against civilians, and although all in the Council expressed concerns, the resolution was vetoed by Russia and China. Russia cited respect for Syria’s sovereignty as well as for the principle of non-intervention as its rationale. Two more non-coercive resolutions were vetoed with similar language. In the twelve publicly recorded Council meetings between October 2011 and April 2013, R2P was brought up by only seven members, all of whom avoided referencing the part of the doctrine that talks about military action. It is true that an intervention in Syria would be considerably more difficult, as the Syrian army is equipped with sophisticated weaponry and air defenses, and action would be further complicated by the disunity of the opposition forces and the fact that Assad is more popular than Qaddafi. Whereas neither the U.S. nor Russia had direct interests in Libya, Syria was the Soviet Union’s main ally in the region throughout the Cold War, a relationship that persists today, as Russia continues to have strong economic interests in the country (arms contracts and a naval base) and there is a sort of “autocratic solidarity” between Putin and Assad. Should the Assad regime fall, Russia would lose its last ally in the Middle East and outside of the former-Soviet sphere.
In standing by Assad, not only does Russia stand by a friend, but it also stands by its principles of territorial integrity and individual sovereignty. Showcasing its mistrust of western intentions, Russian rhetoric regarding Syria has consistently evoked Libya, with Russia insisting that “the situation in Syria cannot be considered in the Council separately from the Libyan experience.” Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote: “Attempts have been made to turn to the so-called ‘Libyan model’ into a legal precedent applicable to acute intrastate conflicts. It is obvious that in implementing the UNSC Resolution 1973 NATO went far beyond the mandate to protect civilians and, in effect, provided military support to one of the parties to the conflict...in the future Russia will not approve UNSC Resolutions sanctioning forceful intervention.” Russia’s, and China’s, concerns are not centered solely on memory of Libya, but are more widely based on suspicions about the true motivations behind western-led military action launched on the pretext of humanitarianism. Many Security Council members find Russian and Chinese criticism of R2P not wholly unreasonable and it is possible that Libya represents the high water mark for the doctrine.
After the arguable misuse of R2P in Libya and the absence of the norm in discussions on Syria, the future of the doctrine is uncertain. It will depend in part on future of global power distribution, as R2P was coined in an era of liberalism, when protecting the status quo was considered reactionary, but as global power shifts, the principle of national sovereignty may yet make a comeback. But perhaps it is too early to draw such conclusions. “Responsibility to Protect” is a noble idea, much like the idea of the UN itself, but in a manner similar to the UN, perhaps R2P works better in theory than in practice.
Advocates for the norm hoped it would create an opening for humanitarian action disconnected from geopolitical or security objectives, but the situation in Syria demonstrates that states cannot easily compartmentalize their interests. Because of the consequences of using force, humanitarianism alone is not enough to compel such action. Thus, when the members of the UNSC weigh the possibility of intervention, multiple objectives must be within reach to justify the military action, but the variance in members’ interests impedes the Security Council from coming to such agreements. The United States, Russia, China, England, and France (the P5) hold permanent seats and veto power on the UNSC and have the final say in authorization of force, honors granted as virtue of their victory in the Second World War. In theory the members of the Security Council work together to promote international peace and security, but in reality if one of the P5 sees it in their best interest to veto such action, the UNSC cannot move forward.
Aside from the unavoidable conflict of geo-political interests that go along with great power politics, the idea of intervention has different connotations for the different P5 countries. Humanitarian intervention arose as new norm in the post-Cold War world as the world order shifted and the chance of conventional clashes between the great powers decreased. For the United States, the idea came of age at a time when the U.S. was redefining its grand strategy and looking for a replacement for the long-held policy of containment.vi Because of American exceptionalism, U.S. foreign policy tends to include the spreading of American values, such as the idea of democracy and the universality of basic rights, and the U.S. public would like to see a world free of human rights abuses. After 1991 U.S. foreign policymakers were able to choose cases of military deployment on a case-by-case basis, influenced by a variety of variables, among them strategic interests and domestic public support, and as a result, humanitarianism entered the rationale for justifying military action abroad. France and Britain frequently vote with the U.S., as a result of a shared history and shared values.
Russia’s approach to intervention and international law stands in contrast to that of the U.S. From the Russian Civil War (1918-1922) which is viewed as an intervention of fourteen capitalist countries against the first state of workers and peasants, to the Second World War against “Nazi interventionists” to the Cold War, when interventions were planned and carried out by “imperialist and reactionary forces” (Korea, Egypt, Congo, Vietnam, etc.), aversion to intervention runs deep in Russian historical memory and political culture. The Kremlin does not frame its use of force on the international stage with interventionary language and there is little appetite domestically – among the populace or in the government – for such international action. There is
skepticism of the motivations behind such interventions, which are widely viewed as the forceful imposition of Western values, such as democratic governance or Eurocentric human rights ethics, abroad.
Russia also fears that supporting humanitarian interventions could set a dangerous precedent, not just for itself, but for the international order. Russia believes strongly in the supremacy of the UN system, as holding a permanent seat on the Security Council is one of the few ways post-Soviet Russia can exert influence in the international arena. When Russian President Putin was first formulating his foreign policy in 2000 before he was elected, he wrote that “it is inadmissible, under the slogan of so called humanitarian intervention, to cancel such basic principles of international law as sovereignty and the territorial integrity of states” and that humanitarianism is used “to justify unilateral forceful actions circumventing the UN Security Council.”Because humanitarian catastrophes, especially those with ethnic dimensions, are seen as legitimate grounds (or pretexts) for intervention, and such scenarios are not at all implausible in Russia, the fear that one day Russia could be the target of such an intervention is not unfounded. The P5 countries dislike standing alone as the sole veto in Security Council votes, and thus try to convince another member to vote with them. Russia and China frequently vote together, in part because of shared concerns over setting dangerous precedents and a shared distaste for meddling in the domestic politics of other countries.
The NATO-led intervention in Libya in 2011 invoked R2P and was authorized by the UN Security Council, and although the West claimed a success, the international community saw things differently. The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1973 to allow no-fly zone to be established in Libya with the purpose of protecting civilians. Yet when the air strikes led to an ousting of Qaddafi, Russia and China, who had abstained from voting, quickly claimed that the NATO-led coalition overstepped its bounds by changing the objectives of the intervention from humanitarianism to regime change. Today Libya is characterized as a failed state and the region destabilized by arms proliferation from the conflict, and it is debatable whether the humanitarian situation – the reason for engagement in the first place – has improved from when Qaddafi was in power. The feeling of betrayal at the alteration of objectives and the destabilizing effects from the intervention heightened suspicions of Western interventionist agendas and weakened support for the norm.
The invocation of R2P to authorize the Libyan intervention and the absence of R2P from discussions regarding Syria show that when humanitarian interventions are low-risk ventures that also further interests, the international community proceeds forward; yet when the situation is complicated and such an endeavor high-risk, action falters. It is possible that the Libya case should be considered an exception rather than a rule when it comes to analyzing humanitarian interventions, as it offered a unique conglomeration of factors conducive to international action in a way very different than Syria. The NATO action in Libya was a direct response to the imminent storming of Benghazi by Qaddafi’s forces which was predicted to be a massacre. To a public tired of U.S. military involvement in the Middle East, President Obama presented the Libyan intervention as an intersection of American values and interests– values in that such action would prevent “violence on a horrific scale” and interests in that the U.S. enjoyed “a unique ability to stop that violence” in the sense that it could do so without putting American troops on the ground. Libya offered the U.S. a chance to act with broad international support, including that of Arab countries, and to further its broader regional interests, which at the time meant supporting the peaceful protest movements of the Arab Spring. Russia chose to abstain rather than veto, because although then-Prime Minister Putin vehemently opposed the action, labeling it a “crusade,” then-President Medvedev said Russia’s decision meant that it would refuse to actively enforce the no-fly zone but did not consider the resolution fundamentally wrong.The decision was influenced by the fact that Russia valued its relations with the major European powers (such as France, who supported the resolution) over its limited interests in Libya and did not want to be seen as Qaddafi’s defender.
The search for conflict resolution in Syria is complicated by a number of factors, among them the dimensions of the civil war, the more deeply entrenched interests of the P5 countries, and a mistrust of western intentions in the wake of Libya. As result of such, R2P has been conveniently ignored. The UN Secretary General briefed the UNSC on the deteriorating situation in Syria on April 27, 2011, but five more months passed before the Council convened formally. France, Germany, Portugal, and the UK tried to pass a non-coercive resolution “strongly condemning” the uses of force against civilians, and although all in the Council expressed concerns, the resolution was vetoed by Russia and China. Russia cited respect for Syria’s sovereignty as well as for the principle of non-intervention as its rationale. Two more non-coercive resolutions were vetoed with similar language. In the twelve publicly recorded Council meetings between October 2011 and April 2013, R2P was brought up by only seven members, all of whom avoided referencing the part of the doctrine that talks about military action. It is true that an intervention in Syria would be considerably more difficult, as the Syrian army is equipped with sophisticated weaponry and air defenses, and action would be further complicated by the disunity of the opposition forces and the fact that Assad is more popular than Qaddafi. Whereas neither the U.S. nor Russia had direct interests in Libya, Syria was the Soviet Union’s main ally in the region throughout the Cold War, a relationship that persists today, as Russia continues to have strong economic interests in the country (arms contracts and a naval base) and there is a sort of “autocratic solidarity” between Putin and Assad. Should the Assad regime fall, Russia would lose its last ally in the Middle East and outside of the former-Soviet sphere.
In standing by Assad, not only does Russia stand by a friend, but it also stands by its principles of territorial integrity and individual sovereignty. Showcasing its mistrust of western intentions, Russian rhetoric regarding Syria has consistently evoked Libya, with Russia insisting that “the situation in Syria cannot be considered in the Council separately from the Libyan experience.” Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote: “Attempts have been made to turn to the so-called ‘Libyan model’ into a legal precedent applicable to acute intrastate conflicts. It is obvious that in implementing the UNSC Resolution 1973 NATO went far beyond the mandate to protect civilians and, in effect, provided military support to one of the parties to the conflict...in the future Russia will not approve UNSC Resolutions sanctioning forceful intervention.” Russia’s, and China’s, concerns are not centered solely on memory of Libya, but are more widely based on suspicions about the true motivations behind western-led military action launched on the pretext of humanitarianism. Many Security Council members find Russian and Chinese criticism of R2P not wholly unreasonable and it is possible that Libya represents the high water mark for the doctrine.
After the arguable misuse of R2P in Libya and the absence of the norm in discussions on Syria, the future of the doctrine is uncertain. It will depend in part on future of global power distribution, as R2P was coined in an era of liberalism, when protecting the status quo was considered reactionary, but as global power shifts, the principle of national sovereignty may yet make a comeback. But perhaps it is too early to draw such conclusions. “Responsibility to Protect” is a noble idea, much like the idea of the UN itself, but in a manner similar to the UN, perhaps R2P works better in theory than in practice.
