In support of R2P: No need to reinvent the wheel

Russian inflexibility on Syria, particularly its four vetoes at the UN Security

Council since March 2011 to protect the Assad regime, has garnered global
condemnation. Over 220,000 people have died in Syria and Russia has refused to
budge. Beyond Syria, the Kremlins designs in Ukraine have resulted in crippling
sanctions. Moscow has nonetheless soldiered on in its support of separatist rebels and
de facto annexation of swaths of the east.
In their latest critique of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a global norm
endorsed by all members of the United Nations in 2005 to prevent and protect
populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity,
Aidan Hehir and Robert Murray call on Putins behavior, particularly in Ukraine, to
explain the alleged failure of the normative project.
In their piece published on OpenCanada this week, they state: Russias actions
in Ukraine suggest that R2Ps strategy of turning states into responsible, human-rightsorientated actors through the exercise of moral suasion is glaringly anachronistic; does
anyone seriously think Vladimir Putin is receptive to the blandishments of humanitarian
advocacy?
Humanitarian blandishments are indeed the last thing President Putin is likely to
be receptive of. Nor does the Russian president seem to be attentive of centuries of
international law and accepted norms of conduct of between states. Moscows conduct
in Ukraine and Syria is therefore not the most appropriate litmus test to judge the
success or failure of R2P.
Hehir and Murrays use of the Russian example is a good starting point for a
critique of their piece and the academic cottage industry of R2P critics along with it.
We find the first problem in their use of the word strategy as it applies to the
Responsibility to Protect. This is typical mistake among critical work on R2P, and
reflects a misappropriation of agency that is rife in the literature. R2P does not have a
strategy. In fact, R2P cannot have a strategy. The Responsibility to Protect is a norm
forged and implemented by imperfect actors operating in a complex world. It cannot be
independent of these actors and it is only as consistent and effective as they make it.
Post-R2P Humanitarianism also plays to a convenient yet inaccurate
representation of R2P that conflates the norm solely with the use of force to protect
civilians. Failures in Libya and Syria are ostensibly front and centre in this critique.

Conveniently absent in Hehir and Murrays piece and many critical works on R2P
are mentions of the other two pillars of the R2P, including policy options available to
states to build their own resilience, as well as those to assist states in upholding their
primary protection responsibilities. Successful cases of prevention, such as efforts in
advance of the 2013 Kenyan elections, are conveniently neglected.
Boiling R2P down to the use and potential abuse of military force in hard
cases is as inaccurate as it is self-serving. It is also disconnect from the more
meaningful discussions at the United Nations and beyond of how to improve R2P
implementation. Following from this, some basic facts further render the authors
charge of failure obsolete and prove that R2P is here to stay.
First, apart from the UN Security Councils shortcomings, the body has
institutionalized R2P in the way it works. Between January 2006 and October 2011, the
UN Security Council referenced R2P 10 times in its official resolutions. Since then, the
Council has referenced R2P 21 times. These include resolutions on Syria, South Sudan,
and an historic resolution of the Prevention of Genocide.
Second, a global network of states committed to R2P is being built from the
ground up. Forty-three countries from all regions of the world have now appointed
a National R2P Focal Point, a senior-level official responsible for mainstreaming R2P
and atrocity prevention. The network convenes every year to discuss how to better
improve their work and the global business of atrocity prevention. These efforts are
complemented at UN headquarters, where 46 countries form the Group of Friends for
the Responsibility to Protect are committed to advancing and operationalizing the
norm, including furthering efforts to mainstream R2P within the UN System.
Third, there is a United Nations Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect.
Together with the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, the two officials form
the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect.
The Office has recently released a new Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes,
which is helping to better sound the alarm, promote action, improve monitoring or
early warning by different actors, and help Member States identify gaps in their atrocity
prevention capacities and strategies.
Far from being a demonstrable failure, as the authors assert, R2P is in fact alive
and well, strengthened by a range of actors at all levels who are constantly seeking to
improve the manner in which the international community protects populations from
genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

Flying in the face of this reality, Hehir and Murray argue that instead of R2P, the
world needs a new international legal architecture. There is nothing substantive
behind this assertion, other than to imply that the real problem with the current
international legal and normative architecture is that the authors didnt invent it.
The International Criminal Court which the Chief Prosecutor calls the legal
arm of R2P comes to mind as one such example. Does it have a place in their new
architecture? What of the International Court of Justice? The UN Security Council? The
United Nations? Like R2P, are the authors saying we must purge all of these in the
construction of this new international legal architecture that they envision?
A more practical and urgent question for authors: While their new
architecture is being built, what of populations facing imminent risk of atrocities in
Syria, Iraq, Sudan, CAR and elsewhere? Sorry, under construction, is hardly an
acceptable response.
Hehir and Murrays quest for academic purity is noble, but to quote Gareth
Evans, the former Australian Foreign Minister, R2P is a framework for action for
pragmatists, not purists, and this is very well understood by those who have to apply it,
not just write about it. To summarize: Welcome to the real world.
R2P is the most effective and broadly accepted political tool we have to prevent
and protect populations at risk of mass atrocities. The authors propose instead to
reinvent the wheel entirely based on a misconstrued representation of how the wheel
works. There is much to be done to make R2P implementation more effective and
consistent, but theres absolutely no need to scrap it all and start from scratch.

Fonte: CINQ-MARS, Evan. https://www.opencanada.org/features/in-support-of-r2p-noneed-to-reinvent-the-wheel/. 18 de marco de 2015.