The Responsibility to Protect - Essay Example

Q6: ‘The “Responsibility to Protect” is a demonstration of “global humanity”. Discuss It is a normal human reaction towards human suffering which is caused by other human beings, as well as to try to bring it to an end and also to consider it one’s own duty to prevent it possible. On top of that to actually believe in there being greater moral urgency about doing so as compared to when the human suffering albeit just as bad but stemming from factors such as natural disasters or other human practices, like systemic/serial violence or economic oppression.. A more vigorous method of this case is actually conveyed in “rights” language where it untenably treats the prevention of the intentional violations of human rights via other agents over the promotion of human rights and protecting human rights in the instance of suffering initiated by natural causes or the influence of human institutions. So to say that the “Responsibility to Protect” is a demonstration of global humanity is somewhat illusory. The Responsibility to protect - known as R2P - talks about the duty of states toward their populations as well as all populations that might be at risk of genocide and other mass atrocity crimes. R2P lays down three pillars of responsibility: Pillar One - The responsibility to prevent by addressing root causes of internal conflict. The ICISS deemed this to be a key obligation. Every state has the Responsibility to protect its populations from mass atrocity crimes specifically: crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing. Pillar Two - The responsibility to react by responding to situations of compelling human need with appropriate measures that could lead to first sanctions, then prosecutions and then finally resort to military intervention. The widespread international community has the obligation to urge and assist individual states in meeting that responsibility by severe means as well. Pillar Three - The responsibility to rebuild, in case a state is noticeably failing to protect its inhabitants. Then the international community should be efficiently prepared to take suitable mutual action by delivering full assistance with reconstruction, recovery and resolution, all in a well-timed and definitive fashion as per the UN Charter. These tenets devised in a report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty during 2001 and were approved by the United Nations General Assembly in the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document paragraphs 138, 139 and 140. In January 2009, the UN Secretary-General published a report on application and adherence to the Responsibility to Protect. The first General Assembly Debate on the Responsibility to Protect ensued shortly thereafter in July 2009. The Secretary-General has since issued five annual reports in move ahead in the General Assembly Informal Interactive Dialogue on the Responsibility to Protect. The Security Council has called upon R2P in above 20 resolutions since 2006. The Human Rights Council has also petitioned for R2P in a number of resolutions, quite lately on the situation in Syria. Claimants of values like human rights and fundamental freedoms, democracy, and free market capitalism, had traditionally formed a bond, among independents states, during the Cold War hinged on an idea of the “West being a community based on a mutual commitment to liberal values, along with strong societal connections, and common security and economic interests. Their proponents include European Union and its member states on the one hand and the United States on the other along with other major Western advocates of R2P such as Canada and Australia all of which seek to change its globally contested nature to accredit R2P as an accepted political norm at the global level It has been witnessed that most non-Western powers, notably the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are on the wall regarding its budding status as an internationally legal norm. On the path of Humanitarian Intervention towards Responsibility The idea of intervening to “protect strangers” is not new. Its roots run deep in Western legal theorizing, from Cicero to Hugo Grotius. It was substantiated in the mid-18th century –this principle of non-intervention was declared in international law, only in later legal theory, turning mainstream in the 20th century through the Covenant of the League of Nations and the Kellogg-Briand Pact and afterwards more openly with the UN Charter (Hoffman, Weiss 2006). With the end of the Cold War, the notion that “human rights outrank sovereignty” had begun picking up pace in Western circles and the United Nations. Sovereignty could be infringed upon altruistic grounds (Hoffman, Weiss 2006). Crises in the 90s such as Somalia, Bosnia, Iraq, East Timor & Kosovo and became prototypes to test the norm of non-intervention. Preventing glaring, large scale infringements of human rights achieved the status of peremptory standards of international law. They were documented as crimes distressing the international community (Hoffman, Weiss 2006). Beyond the West, the response was harsh. What became known as humanitarian intervention was largely viewed as discriminatory, hypocritical and driven by national interests and therefore marred by irreconcilable controversy? (Hoffman, Weiss 2006) At the core of this controversy was not just the mere transgression of Westphalian sovereignty, but the exact form in which such an infringement could take place. Debates revolved around the acceptable degrees of coercion, where “soft” forms of intervention to provide economic, technical and even political assistance were more tolerable than “hard” ones extending from political conditionality to sanctions and to straight out military attacks. Instances such as the 1999 Kosovo war had added aggravated the whole situation. In the 1990s, humanitarian intervention was engraved onto the global normative map but it was never able to garner a critical mass of consensus. In the 21st century – and partially as a rejoinder to the above critiques – the humanitarian intervention dialogue has been taken over by that on the Responsibility to protect which, while disputed, has become accepted in the global conversation. Like humanitarian intervention, R2P decidedly originated in the “Global North”, on the podium set by the Canadian-sponsored International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty(Hoffman, Weiss 2006). According to some, its roots lie in liberal international ethics and for others, it even represents a new form of Western imperialism, the R2P differs from humanitarian intervention in four important ways. Humanitarian intervention is no more than military intrusion whereas R2P is primarily a pre-emptive measure that emphasizes state responsibilities. Martial intervention is subject to be adopted as a last-ditch effort in the face of failure in all other, non-coercive channels and only when it is sanctioned by the Security Council. R2P offers this intervention beyond solely military means and it embodies a variety of obligations referred to as the three pillars of responsibility. In specifying the responsibility to react, the ICISS report drew from just war theory. Reaction through military means would be justified only when the conditions of just cause, right intention, proportionality, last resort, right authority, and reasonable prospects for success were met. This was the reason R2P garnered supporters beyond the Global North and not the notion of humanitarian intervention. This is not to say that a clear global consensus on R2P is coming together. Not only does the theoretical debate on the merits of this norm live on but more prominently, the extent of support for and the particular interpretation of the norm differs extensively on the local, regional and international platforms (Hoffman, Weiss 2006). Criticism: Infringement of national sovereignty One of the main concerns surrounding R2P is that it oversteps boundaries of national sovereignty However, advocates of R2P claim that the only circumstances in which the international community will interpose in a state without its approval is when the state is either letting mass atrocities to occur, or is perpetrating them, in which case the state is no longer abiding by its responsibilities as a sovereign. In this sense, R2P can be recognized as fortifying sovereignty. However using the example of Libya, Indias UN Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri stated that "the (Libyan) case had given R2P a bad name" and that "the only aspect of the resolution of interest to the international community was use of all possible avenues to bombard the hell out of Libya". Puri also purported that civilians had been furnished with arms and that the no-fly zone had been put into effect only selectively. Double standards in the implementation Even though the Gaza strip has been witness to widespread massacre and loss of human lives, R2P backers are never heard pushing for a military intervention in that region to protect the Palestinians from Israeli missiles. Neither is anyone talking about protecting Egyptian civilians from the new, ruthless US-supported dictatorship in Egypt. Abuse of R2P Another strong allegation coming especially from the Eurasian block is that RTP is used to justify interventions as a mask for realist agendas and motives. The world had witnessed in the case of Libya that an intervention that was supposed to protect civilians had ended up as a war on the side of the rebels. Its repercussions were witnessed when a number of attempts were made by the U.S. government during the years 2011 to 2013 to authorize Security Council resolutions invoking R2P to substantiate military intervention in the Syrian Civil War. Russia and China vetoed these resolutions while their governments both released statements some such that, in their opinion, R2P had been misused by the U.S. as a ploy for "regime change", quite markedly in the case of Libya and that as far as they were concerned they would be highly apprehensive of any future Security Council resolutions summoning R2P based on past experience. Alluding to the NATO-led and UN-approved intervention in Libya, both Beijing & Moscow now associate R2P with regime change. The presence of agitated minority populations within both the countries (for example the Chechens and Tibetans) affixes a whole new component in light of their hostility to R2P. Military intervention The question of military intervention under the third pillar of R2P remains controversial. More than a few states have contended that R2P should not let the international community to intercede on states through military engagement, because to do so is a violation against sovereignty. An associated argument bears the question as to whether more specific criteria should be obtained to determine when the Security Council should authorize military intervention The UN endorsed the principle of the Responsibility to Protect in 2005. This has proved controversial partly because it includes, where all else fails, military intervention to try to stop certain classes of human rights violation. Even if we embrace R2P as representation of the ‘cosmopolitan turn’ in understanding the UN, there would also be a taint of doubt about whether military intervention is the correct way to discharge our cosmopolitan responsibilities to protect. The strongest objections to its use being that t it is counterproductive. It unreasonably gives favor to prevention of the deliberate violation of human rights by other agents, giving it precedence over simpler endeavors like the promotion of human rights and protecting human rights in the face of suffering produced by natural causes or the effects of human institutions. Moreover it goes against the philosophy of ‘the means are ends in the making’. A much quoted saying of Gandhi reads: ‘the means are the ends in the making’, it suggests that the means we take should reflect the values that we want to promote in the “ends”. If we promote human rights we should do so by respecting human rights in the actions we take to that end and so on. In effect this quotation has two clarifications: first that our real ends are already revealed in the means we take. If we go in pursuit of our ends by deceit then we anticipate deceit or those we are the kind of individuals that will deceit in the world. Second, is that, our means ought to be in harmony with the ends we are pursuing: We ought not pursue justice unjustly or propagate peace peacefully etc. Another downside was that those who have taken part in interventions have shown a tendency to neglect civil society instead focusing on dealing with those responsible for violence or remaining within the protective walls of international compounds. Although the terms “responsibility to protect” and “human security” have entered the political dictionary but it’s also true they are used to justify interventions undertaken for quite different purposes. Like the Sri Lankan government used the language of RTP to justify its final bloody defeat of the Tamil Tigers. In the same manner, the Russian government exploited both RTP and human security to rationalize its intervention in Georgia and its separated republic of Ossetia, embedded in terms of the “purportedly ongoing genocide” of Ossetia’s as well as the protection of Russian citizens. R2P is borne from the failure of the international community in fulfilling their duties.  R2P does not express anything new, it is the attempt to collate and summarize the main concepts which are fundamental to the creation of the system of international community: the protection of people through the establishment of an environment of peace and cooperation between countries. R2P can also be seen as an expression of the enthusiasm of the international community to look beyond the narrow priorities of the political agenda when it comes to protection from grave breaches of international law. Srebrenica, Rwanda and Darfur were not situations characterized by a lack of means to be solved.  Those situations demonstrated a lack of geopolitical interest in their solution. It is this lack of political will, and not the absence of state responsibility, that is the main driver for the failure of the international community to address many international crises. (Doty, Carnesale et al. 1976) The referent affected in this case is the state within an anarchistic international system in which no superior power sits above states. Threats to the state normally come in the shape of outside military threats whereas the agencies of attaining security are its own military. Additionally realism beholds security studies as ‘the conditions that tend to employ force more likely, the ways that the application of force influences individuals, societies, state and the exclusive policies that states implement so as to get ready for, prevent or take part in war’ (Doty, Carnesale et al. 1976). The Welsh School approach considers security essentially different to traditional approaches. The School of thought describes security as emancipation. Emancipation is understood as ‘the freeing of people (as individuals and groups) from those physical and human constraints which stop them carrying out what they would freely choose to do’. These ‘physical and human constrains’ are not defined deterministically but are somewhat context-specific. In comparison to a realist understanding of security, the Welsh School provides a standardized outline that people are supposed to be the referent objects of security established against the state because the moral intent of the state is to oblige a social contract and preserve its population. The two different conceptualizations of security stated above demonstrate how security is judged because there is no consensus on what the expression stands for. Both make convincing yet differing statements about security definitions. Consequently, there is no available description of the term that is sensitive to the way security can be perceived or performed by all players. The Welsh School has expressly criticized the realist perception of security. Realists see the state as the principal player in world politics and hence comprehend security to be concerned with the defense of the state. Welsh School scholars oppose this view, arguing that the fundamental role of the state is not to protect itself but to impose a social contract and shield its population especially since the state is offered legality via the consensus of its people. In this respect Booth proclaimed that ‘states should be considered as means and not ends of security’. Consistent with this thinking, a realist understanding of security is also insensitive to how states can be significant sources of insecurity to their own people. Likewise, ‘Many states are deeply implicated in the materialization of other types of insecurities for their own dwellers. Matters such as food and environmental security serve as an example’. Furthermore, it is argued that ‘states are too varied in their disposition to serve as the foundation for a complete theory of security’. Critical theorists have sternly censured state-centrism as it is realistically quite unhelpful. In this regard, wars amongst states are waged not quite often as wars within states and so traditional security understandings are not empirically helpful in understanding new, localized wars that involve non-state players. Despite these reproaches of pragmatism, the Welsh School approach to security even so has intrinsic problems with its comprehension of security. Although, Welsh School critical theory does offer a formidable and compelling review of traditional interpretations of security, the Welsh School’s perception of security has flaws as well (Martin, Owen 2013). Post-colonial viewpoints have also been disapproving of the Welsh School’s cosmopolitan take on security. This is in spite of Wyn Jones alleging that the Welsh School framework is ‘for the unrepresented, the voiceless, the weak, and its objective are their emancipation’ (Martin, Owen 2013). Ayoob has criticized their desire to make emancipation universal, arguing that it is fundamentally a Western idea embedded in Western philosophy and is ‘remotely distant from Third World’ understandings of security. It is argued that ‘one should not… run away with the concept [of emancipation] to make it all things to all people’. Therefore, although it’s apparently ‘cosmopolitan’, this School’s methodology is believed to be intensely Eurocentric and is not consistent with the way some perceive security, specifically those in the ‘Third World’. Emancipation is a notion that can possibly stage a drastic ‘democratization’ of security. Emancipation thoroughly undertakes the concept of democratic politics and the subject of institutional power in obtaining a voice for the silenced; those insinuated by (Martin, Owen 2013) as ‘security have-nots’. Critical security studies (CSS) or the Welsh School coined by Steve Smith (2000), have tried to hypothesize emancipation as a substitute for the prevalent edifices of security. Even though CSS do not take on the idea of de-securitization, the two concepts are without a doubt related, if just because of their promise in setting up alternatives for a number of social practices. In contrast to de-securitization, emancipation depends upon the academic tradition of the Frankfurt School and a critical tradition of contemplating resistance & social change. Despite this intellectual tradition, Ken Booth maintains it is impossible to say ‘what emancipation appears to be like, apart from its definition to certain people at certain times’. Comparable to the Frankfurt School, emancipation is directly associated with the notion of moving towards a better world (Martin, Owen 2013). For CSS, it stays nevertheless a highly general concept which can only be panned out by bearing in mind ‘real people in real places’ and their insecurity dilemmas. The Welsh School wants a pervasive alternative to state-centric security and recommends another type of security, defined as emancipation (or emancipation defined as security) at the level of the individual. The labor for security is reformed as a struggle for emancipation, without any misgivings about the connection between security & emancipation. Critical scholars like Booth and Wyn Jones endorse both a CoS-type of approach to security and a standardized practice where security is a value to strive for. On one hand, Booth admitted that security has massive political importance due to which obtaining an issue on the state agenda signifies giving it priority; on the other, security is emancipation as an epitome that needs to be attained. Otherwise, as per Wyn Jones’ articulation, ‘security in the viewpoint of absence of threat of (involuntary) pain, poverty, fear and hunger is but an quintessential aspect in the labor for emancipation’. In accord with this second meaning of security, Booth pointed out that ‘security studies need to take on problems of those who, at this instance, are being oppressed, starved or shot.’ Security itself institutes a particular kind of politics and that it is important to be aware of the politics one authorizes by advocating security. The equality of security and emancipation adjourns the project of converting the results of securitization obvious, of evaluating its political consequences and presumes ‘security’ is worth being achieved. CSS thus unintentionally support the discriminative logic of security and the politics that is established by ensuring security, impartial to whichever/whoever is the referent object (or subject in Booth’s vernacular).The double usage of security allows the CoS to be partially correct in disputing that CSS ‘will frequently try to muster other security problems like unemployment, environmental problems & poverty to be more significant and more hostile’, thereby replicating the traditional concept of security that supports objectivism. The allegation of ‘objectivist security’ is partially incorrect as it is incapable of recognizing that the CSS project is completely a political project, channeled to better the destiny of the ‘wretched of the earth’. Local communities were empowered to undertake this challenge. They were asked, as per policy, to “build [the] resilience” of their communities towards violent extremism. For this reason, Prevent took a somewhat ‘soft’ approach to the government’s wider counter-terrorism strategy. In keeping with the apparent importance of such measures, prevents funding in 2008/09 was 140 million pounds. It was squandered to say the least, in a number of futile projects because Prevent claimed to tackle radicalization by supplying a “counter-narrative” to that of al-Qaeda and other extremist groups and at aiming to create more local involvement amongst Muslims within society that got them to accept the responsibility of identifying would be extremists and at the same time improving community attitudes with the police. But instead of what some believed it to be about i.e. teaching British values and beliefs and otherwise allowing the relevant authorities to implement the law, Prevent got occupied in efforts to fashion what one Imam pronounced to be a “MI5 Islam”, one that had, in effect, gotten Muslim communities to serve as informants providing intelligence on their local community. However this is just tip of the iceberg, as the matter at hand is the counter productivity of this strategy. The primary reason for this scheme to be controversial, and under fierce opposition, is due to variety of discussion. As most critics’ pointedly remarked it to be not actually preventive measure to harbor extremism but a manifestation of a political and ideological campaign unfairly targeting the Muslim community. It is so because the approaches adopted in this scheme have served to marginalize the Muslim community in the UK from wider civic society that has resulted in an atmosphere of hate and anger towards them. David Cameron, spoke at a conference in Munich, 2010, about security, radicalization, and multi-cultural that had sparked a debate regarding how the UK monitored and dealt with extremism.  Attributing the doctrine of ‘state-multiculturalism’ the British coalition government contended for a more ‘active muscular liberalism’ that would pinpoint the root causes of extremist ideologies. Amidst it all succeeded in building a paranoia and hysteria leading to a diversified debate about political, moral, social and theological side of Islamism, Muslims, and terrorism that was promoted by the way Britain is portrayed across the world a set of people with extremist organizations; who employed tactics of persuasion, indoctrination, radicalization and the encouragement of religious intolerance. Since the attacks have occurred on British soil, the UK had pushed for rigorous counter-terrorism legislation that created an intensified environment of the terrorist-situation being imminently substantial.  The government expected from the Prevent program to establish an institution of law abiding Muslims that valued the British way of life and engaged within society and in doing so they reduced the risk of home-grown extremism. They were asked to be part of a scenario in which Muslims as a community rejected and actively condemned violent extremism and sought to undermine and isolate violent extremists. This clearly exhibits that all and only Muslims were required to play a part in preventing extremism since the demand was not directed towards other segments of the British population. Even when the Muslim communities co-operated and rejected terrorism, they were and still are frequently, in political discourse being asked questions about their stance on patriotism and British values. These are conscious attempts that display a measure for prejudice and discrimination. According to a good number of Muslims, it has now come to a point where they feel being single out within society due to such counter-terrorist strategies which additionally albeit unsurprisingly has led to an increase in hate crimes committed against them bred in this climate of fear. On top of that, British Muslims have become deeply suspicious of these policies. The stipulation to spy on their ‘brothers’ is sure to alienate young Muslims; the exact set of people Prevent is struggling to get on its side. Now we discuss the possible remedies to alleviate radicalization, other than the government policies implemented, that may be potently effective yet are ignored. If we look into it, the solution is not so complex. It is to learn the process by which people agree to support terrorism and violent behavior and as a result join terrorist groups”. A central precept to this belief is that ideologues are try to single out and then indoctrinate susceptible members of society, who are supposedly open to the “risk” of being enlisted into violent extremism. Mostly this process is carried out by exploiting their belief in an ideology that’s grounded in a mistaken interpretation of religion or by means of manipulating their personal issues; perceived or real tribulations; and a lack of resistance towards, or even in support of, violent extremism among such individuals. Evidently, in all such cases of discipline, socio-economic and cultural factors have played a significant role in defining who becomes an extremist however Prevent has scarcely done enough in investigating in this regard. All the Prevent think-tank would then have to devise is to remove these factors from the table by exposing such individuals to proper clarification of such religious concepts as well as endeavor to improve their personal situations through guidance and support. References CARVILLE, J., 2003. Had Enough?: A Handbook for Fighting Back. Simon & Schuster. DOTY, P., CARNESALE, A. and NACHT, M., 1976. Foreign Affairs, 55(1), pp. 119. GREAT BRITAIN: PARLIAMENT: HOUSE OF COMMONS: COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL,GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE and STARKEY, P., 2010. Preventing violent extremism: sixth report of session 2009-10, report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence. Stationery Office. HOFFMAN, P.J. and WEISS, T.G., 2006. Sword & Salve. Rowman & Littlefield. MARTIN, M. and OWEN, T., 2013. The Routledge Handbook of Human Security. Taylor & Francis. Read More