The Responsibility to Protect and a Cosmopolitan Approach to Human Protection

Samuel James Wyatt

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9783030007010
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: National Security
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book conceptualizes Responsibility to Protect doctrine (R2P) as part of a global cosmopolitan agenda, drawing on the work of Jürgen Habermas, and argues that R2P is reflective of a shift towards a more cosmopolitan approach to human protection. The author also proposes a framework of analysis that includes a strong legal dimension in order to advance reforms to the international legal, political and military structures in order to better prevent humanitarian crises and protect civilians in times of conflict. The volume explores the cosmopolitan, moral and legal progress that has occurred—and could yet occur—under R2P as the approach to human protection transitions in the Post-Cold War era.

© The Author(s) 2019

Samuel James WyattThe Responsibility to Protect and a Cosmopolitan Approach to Human ProtectionNew Security Challengeshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00701-0_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and a Cosmopolitan Approach to Human Protection

Samuel James Wyatt¹

(1)

Sheffield, UK

Samuel James Wyatt

End Abstract

Under the auspices of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, each individual state has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes , ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and, in addition, to prevent such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. ¹ Furthermore, and should the state manifestly fail to fulfil this primary responsibility, the international community has, through the UN, a residual duty to help protect populations from such violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, as well as to assist states in the prevention of such crimes. ²

This book will address the question of whether or not R2P reflects a shift towards a more cosmopolitan approach to human protection in the post-Cold War period. It will argue that it does, articulating that, through the cosmopolitan ethical and, in particular, legal progress that has taken place under the auspices of R2P, the doctrine has engendered a sense of optimism surrounding the evolution towards a more cosmopolitan approach to human protection, both in theory and in practice. In so doing, the monograph undertakes a robust and critical appraisal of the relationship between R2P and both the cosmopolitan form of human protection and Jürgen Habermas’ constitutional cosmopolitan approach. The former provides the basis of the moral relationship prevalent between cosmopolitanism and R2P, whilst the latter offers a framework through which to gauge the cosmopolitan legal developments that have taken place under the aegis of the doctrine. Furthermore, the book will acknowledge that R2P continues to fall short of fulfilling the normative demands of cosmopolitan human protection and, moreover, to comprehensively advance Habermas’ constitutional cosmopolitan approach. Subsequently, it will outline a series of institutional and legal reforms which, if implemented, could strengthen the moral and legal relationship that exists between R2P and such contemporary forms of cosmopolitan theory. In the process, these reforms would come to heighten the sense of optimism that surrounds the transition towards a more cosmopolitan approach to human protection in the post-Cold War period.

The decision to assess whether R2P is suggestive of a shift towards a more cosmopolitan approach to human protection is the reflection of a long-standing curiosity with the norms of human rights and human protection and, at the same time, inspired by the global commitment to the protection of such norms that has manifested in the post-Cold War period. This is evidenced by the increasing presence and relevance of a cosmopolitan global ethics within contemporary international relations. This is significant in the light of social commentators, academics, students and political activists who champion the norms of human rights and human protection and, at the same time, in the context of discussions over the right of individual victims to protection and assistance, the host government’s duty to provide such protection and assistance, the international community’s responsibility to act in default and, in particular, outside governments’ right to intervene in the event of systematic human rights violations. ³ For example, a new norm of Security Council-authorised interventions was to develop throughout the 1990s, ⁴ with the post-Cold War period characterised by the emergence and acceptance of a global human rights agenda within the international community. ⁵ More precisely, the years following the Cold War were characterised by a ‘modification’ ⁶ to the existing principles of international law—in particular, to the norms of non-intervention and the prohibition against the use of force—with the collective responsibility to promote international peace and security under the rubric of the United Nations (UN) increasingly extended to the protection of global human rights and international humanitarian law. This was reflected in the UN Security Council’s (UNSC) decision to sanction Chapter VII mandates in response to egregious human rights violations in Somalia , Rwanda ⁷ and Bosnia-Herzegovina and, more broadly, by the morally legitimate—albeit illegal—US-led NATO military operation undertaken in Kosovo . Put simply, military intervention for human protection purposes gradually came to be accepted as morally (and, to a lesser degree, both legally and politically) permissible in the face of gross human rights abuses. ⁸

Furthermore, this post-Cold War cosmopolitan trend has continued with the endorsement of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). R2P represents a codified international principle and emerging constitutional norm that confers a collective responsibility on the international community and, more specifically, UN member states to protect populations from genocide , war crimes , ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in the event that sovereign governments manifestly fail to do so. ⁹ This responsibility primarily extends to the use of diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means. ¹⁰ However, and as clarified under former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s 2009 report Implementing the Responsibility to Protect —endorsed by 180 of the UN’s 193 member states—it also extends to the collective use of coercive enforcement measures under Chapter VII of the UN Charter , albeit as a means of last resort. ¹¹ As this book will argue, the UN-sanctioned, NATO -led mission Operation Unified Protector conducted in Libya in 2011 represents a watershed moment in the evolution of R2P, with intervention coming to reflect a genuine—and, in the short term, successful—application of the doctrine’s conceptual and legal principles. More recent developments including Donald Trump’s policy of ‘non-interventionism’ (underscored by his plans to cut contributions to UN peacekeeping operations ¹² and, in addition, his ‘four pillar’ approach to national security, which makes no mention of human rights), ¹³ the USA’s withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council , the re-election of right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Hungary, populist gains during the general election in Italy and, finally, the relationship between the mass Libyan and Syrian refugee exodus into Europe and the outcome of the UK’s referendum on EU membership ¹⁴ are suggestive of a shift away from the language of human rights and the importance of international institutions. However, R2P and, more broadly, cosmopolitan global ethics remain relevant and prevalent within contemporary international relations. R2P embodies a prominent institution of international human rights enforcement within the UN that continues to be invoked in response to egregious human rights violations, constituting a stable and recognisable pattern of rules and related practices that has turned states and the wider international community into ‘agents’ in pursuit of the common goals of international security and, in particular, the protection of global human rights. R2P also continues to garner widespread attention in view of the US-led Operation Inherent Resolve undertaken in response to the actions of Islamic State (IS) in Syria , Iraq and Libya , with the coalition offensive motivated in part by the human protection goals intimately bound up with the doctrine. Furthermore, on 10 August 2017, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres released his first annual report on the Responsibility to Protect. This emphasised the importance of legal, moral and political accountability to the implementation of R2P and the practical steps that can be taken by member states, intergovernmental bodies and the UN system to strengthen accountability for the prevention of genocide , war crimes , ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity . ¹⁵

It is acknowledged that much literature already exists on R2P, in particular on the subject of the doctrine’s moral and legal standing within international law. At the same time, commentators have already begun to assess the doctrine’s relationship with cosmopolitanism and, in particular, examine the cosmopolitan moral and legal tenets intimately bound up with the doctrine. However, the advancement of cosmopolitan ethical and legal theory has, in the context of such international developments as R2P, remained both underdeveloped and cursorily assessed. ¹⁶ At the same time, debates and discussions over the doctrine’s efficacy have only been fleetingly referenced in a cosmopolitan ethical and legal context; whilst Karina Sangha, Johan Alberth, Henning Carlsson, Garrett Brown and Ali Bohm have all alluded to the cosmopolitan ethical norms underpinning R2P, none of these authors have, as yet, discussed or debated these ideas specifically in the context of a cosmopolitan approach to human protection. Sangha, for instance, argues that R2P is centred upon the cosmopolitan premise of ‘moral universalism ’, with moral duties conferred on states to protect human rights. ¹⁷ Should they fail to do so, and given the existence of universal moral principles, these duties are transferred to the wider international community. ¹⁸ Alberth and Carlsson, meanwhile, emphasise the ‘cosmopolitan tendencies’ prevalent in the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document , with R2P understood to constitute an expression of cosmopolitan morality in view of the primary responsibility of the state to secure the safety and rights of its own population and, in addition, the wider perception of the state as the guarantor of the rights of individuals. ¹⁹ Furthermore, they argue that R2P has helped to reconceptualise the principles of internal and external sovereignty. This is a consequence of the limits placed on the actions of states within their territories and the residual responsibility conferred on states to uphold and engage in human security , in the case of the latter eschewing their autonomy in relation to the wider international community. ²⁰ Brown and Bohm, finally, and further to Alberth and Carlsson, argue that the requirement of ‘responsible sovereignty’ under the auspices of R2P is predicated on cosmopolitan principles, with a primary responsibility conferred on political regimes to respect and protect the human rights of their individual members which, if contravened—and in accordance with a cosmopolitan ethics of assistance—yields an international d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and a Cosmopolitan Approach to Human Protection
• 2. The Global Ethics of a Cosmopolitan Approach to Human Protection
• 3. Kant, Habermas and the Constitutionalisation of International Law
• 4. The Responsibility to Protect and Cosmopolitan Human Protection
• 5. The Responsibility to Protect and Cosmopolitan Global Justice
• 6. The Responsibility to Protect and Habermas’ Theory of Constitutionalisation with a ‘Cosmopolitan Purpose’
• 7. The Responsibility to Protect, Imperialism and Military Intervention in Libya
• 8. Towards an ‘Even More’ Cosmopolitan Approach to Human Protection: Proposals on Extending the Cosmopolitan Trend
• 9. Conclusion: The Responsibility to Protect and the Move Towards a More Cosmopolitan Approach to Human Protection
• Back Matter