วันอาทิตย์ที่ 6 พฤศจิกายน พ.ศ. 2565

‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) : Syria case by Panwa Nilprapunt

‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) : Syria case

Panwa Nilprapunt

 

Introduction

 

For the past eleven years, the Syrian civil war and its consequences have been among the worst crises of the twenty-first century. Beginning in March 2011 as a part of the Arab Spring, the war has since turned into a series of sporadic conflicts between the armies under President Bashir Al-Assad, their oppositions, Islamist groups, and various foreign forces in battlefields across Syria and neighbouring countries. Given its scale and duration, the impacts of war have been staggering: with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees identifying 5.6 million Syrian refugees while also estimating that 83 civilians have been killed daily since 2011 ([UNCHR] 2022, n.d.); additionally, over 14.6 million Syrians are also in need of assistance, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs ([UNOCHA] n.d.). And yet, the lack of international intervention to end the conflict also puts to question the integrity of the principle of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), with many observers seeing the war as marking the ‘death’ of the R2P (Al-Oraibi 2021; Nasser-Eddine 2012). With events such as the Ukraine war representing the emergence of conflicts worldwide, the failure of the R2P to address the humanitarian disaster in Syria is becoming more relevant than ever.

Accordingly, this essay will examine the factors that inhibit the effectiveness of the R2P in resolving the Syrian conflict and its viability in the changing global order. To this end, it will begin by first establishing what R2P and its core components are, with references to the mainstream International Relations (IR) theories such as Liberalism, Realism and Constructivism, prior to comparing it to the empirical context. Through this process, it argues that in addition to issues specific to Syria, the doctrine’s effectiveness is also hindered by the distrust stemming from its historic ambiguities concerning the use of forces and regime change. These findings thus lead the essay to conclude that R2P itself faces many caveats and that, unless rigorous efforts are made to address the existing limitations, its prospect as a global norm remains grim.

 

What is R2P? An appraisal

 

The history and components of the R2P

 

While the peacekeeping operation may have long been an apparatus of the United Nations, the R2P is a relatively new concept. Driven by atrocities committed in places like the Balkans and Rwanda, a trend began to emerge in the 1990s on the need to focus on human security. This culminated in the 2001 report by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (‘the Commission’) which, in the words of Constructivist IR theorists, marked the moment R2P ‘entered the ‘norm-life cycle’’ (Ralph 2018, p. 17).  In it, the Commission assigned states the ‘responsibility to protect’ their citizens from atrocities while also stating that the international community has the obligation to intervene if they fail to do so (Chandler 2004; ICISS 2001). The endorsement of the Commission’s suggestions during the 2005 World Summit Outcome (WSO) thus resulted in the formal recognition of the R2P, whilst subsequent UN resolutions and publications also cemented its position as a tool to address humanitarian issues (Bellamy & Williams 2011).

 

Consequently, the observation of the history of the R2P helps us discern its core elements and how it is supposed to function. In particular, the Commission and the WSO identified four types of atrocities that would necessitate its mobilisation, namely genocide, war crime, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity (ICISS 2001; United Nations General Assembly [UNGA] 2005, p. 30). Previous UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon also outlined in his report three pillars of the doctrine: including the duty of states to safeguard their people from atrocities; the need for the international community to assist in state-building; and the rights to intervene, which are similar to the Commission’s proposals (UNGA 2009, p. 2). Nevertheless, Basaran (2014, p. 195) also finds that measures of the R2P are varied, ranging from issuing warnings to the application of military force, with the UN Security Council deciding when and how to use it. Given its objective, this essay will put an emphasis on the third pillar, the responsibility to intervene, in explaining how the failure to impose it led to the R2P’s downfall in Syria.

 

R2P in the literature: The debates

 

Despite its recency, R2P has been extensively studied; yet the survey of the literature also reveals that its efficacy remains a divisive topic. On the one hand, advocates of the R2P generally view its integration into the UN’s framework with optimism. These include Evans (2012), who sees the intervention in Libya as representing its emergence as a global norm; Bellamy (2015), who hopes that its deployments can build consensus on its application; and Thakur (2015, p. 13), who describes the R2P as promoting ‘international solidarity’.  Conversely, Heinze and Steele (2013) view the doctrine’s success in formulating a universal approach to atrocity crimes as nonetheless limited; whilst Hehir (2013) cites the cases of selective interventionism since the 1990s as the evidence of R2P’s incoherency and detachment from the realities of humanitarian intervention. Meanwhile, some studies have taken to identifying structural problems that they see as limiting the R2P’s effectiveness, though they also object to the idea that the concept is doomed to fail (Paris 2014).

 

Given the myriad of opinions, the use of IR theories is likely to help better our understanding of the views concerning the R2P. In the first place, the R2P’s foundation highlights its roots in Liberalism, with the Commission stating that their idea is, in the words of Chandler (2004, p. 62): ‘not based on power of Realpolitik, but morality’. This notion is further reinforced by supporters of the R2P, whose arguments about the role of states as moral agents also reflect the Liberalist belief in the international order and its rights to intervene in addressing global challenges such as human security (Chandler 2004; Doyle 2011). By comparison, several R2P critics and their focus on the conflict between sovereignty and interventionism represent a realist view of international relations which, according to Basaran (2014), see national interests as more important to states than humanitarian concerns.  Alternatively, some academics’ view of R2P also reflects the Constructivist IR approach, which perceives its development as demonstrating how the acceptance or rejection of norms can influence their implementation in international politics (Ralph 2018). The following section of this essay will therefore assess the extent these IR perspectives correspond to the reality in Syria.

 

R2P in Syria: An empirical assessment

 

In order to understand why R2P has failed in Syria, it is necessary to examine the occasion where it was effectively endorsed; the 2011 intervention in Libya, for instance, represents the most well-known application of the doctrine. Analysing the events preluding the decision to intervene via Resolution 1973, Bellamy and Williams (2011) found that there was already a clear threat of atrocities, with Gaddafi describing his plan to exterminate the people in the rebel-held cities ‘like cockroaches’ (Barker 2011). Many researchers also reveal how Libya’s geopolitical context was also suitable, as its isolation from other Arabs states and the international community helped eliminate any ties that could have prevented collective actions (Zifcak 2012). Additionally, they also found that the adoption of Resolution 1973 was possible only due to the consensus between the regional actors and the Council members that intervention was necessary, with Russia and China opting to abstain (Paris 2014; Zifcak 2012). Thus the experiences from the Libyan intervention show that certain conditions must be satisfied to justify the use of R2P.

 

Consequently, the observation of what helped R2P to succeed in Libya also explains why it has failed in Syria, as many of the prerequisites are either absent or rendered inoperable due to various geopolitical reasons. Chief among them is the split within the UNSC, with Russia and China have been vetoing every proposal to employ military intervention since the beginning of the conflict in 2011, much to the dismay of Western observers (Akbarzadeh & Saba 2019). This divide becomes especially relevant when considering the Council members’ interests within the region: including Russia whose possession of a naval base in Syria and status as the country’s major weapon supplier influence its decision to recognise the Assad regime while also rejecting any call for its dissolution (Averre & Davies 2015; Bellamy 2022; Treisman 2012). Syria's capable militaries and deep ties to the politics of the Middle East, moreover, also prevent regional actors: including organisations such as the Arab League and its neighbours like Turkey and Iran, from leading an effort to stop the conflict and subsequently inhibit actions from the wider global community (Evans 2012; Lynch 2012). Hence the presence of these underlying elements adds credence to the realist criticisms that national interests can prevent the R2P from achieving its intended purposes.

 

Apart from geopolitics, the conflicting views on the ambiguity of the R2P and its limits also appear to be driving the reluctance to employ it in Syria. Specifically, many observers – including even advocates of the R2P – have noted how previous applications of the doctrine have resulted in regime change and excessive collateral damages, with civilian casualties from NATO’s bombing in Libya and domestic instability following the fall of the Gaddafi regime serving as a particular example (Evans 2012; Paris 2014; Zifcak 2012). These issues have led states in the Global South to question its motives: including the former president of South Africa who reversed his country’s support of Resolution 1973 (Mbeki 2011); similarly, China and Russia have also stated their objections against the use of R2P to challenge territorial sovereignty and trigger regime changes in fear of repeating the events in Libya (Akbarzadeh & Saba 2019; Averre & Davies 2015; Gegout & Suzuki 2020). On the other hand, supporters of the R2P in the Global North are also responsible for confirming this suspicion by declaring government transition as a part of the R2P, including the demand by the United States for Assad’s resignation (Ukman & Sly 2011). Hence this inconsistency in how R2P should be applied and its consequences, argued Paris (2014), makes the concept appear hypocritical and unsuitable for real-world practices.

 

In general, the analysis of the causes behind R2P’s failure in Syria shows that, despite its optimism, the doctrine itself remains a practically flawed concept. The fact that geopolitics has acted to alter and constrain the course of the R2P, for instance, undermines the hope that its application would be enforced by international institutions and civil society, whose powers have failed to prevent states from prioritising their national interests over the prevention of atrocities. In the meantime, the way R2P’s implementation is obstructed by its divisive definitions also limits its progress in being accepted in spite of its early success. Adding to these issues are the limited circumstances that can justify the R2P’s mobilisation, with the lack of threat of atrocities by the regime having prevented the concept from being invoked during the early stage of the conflict (Zifcak 2012). Put simply, the Syrian war provides ample testimonies of R2P’s weaknesses as a global norm, with the international community’s inability to organise effective responses even after the use of chemical weapons by the Assad government only serves to confirm its ineffectiveness (Akbarzadeh & Saba 2019; Nahlawi

2016).

 

Conclusion

 

In order to evaluate the success of R2P as a global norm, this essay has been employing relevant theories and case studies from Syria to determine the doctrine’s capacity to stop and prevent atrocities. However, what emerges from its analysis appears to go against the expectations of both the designers and well-wishers of the R2P. Instead, evidence suggests that the concept – at least in its current iteration – suffers from inflexibility, ambiguity in meanings, and other shortcomings that prevent it from realising its potential while also damaging its reputation in the eyes of the global community. Ultimately, unless multilateral efforts are made to lay out a widely accepted definition and to strengthen its credibility, the ability of R2P to address humanitarian issues and conflicts is likely to remain limited for the foreseeable future.

 

References

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