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Trust or Perish? The Responsibility to Protect and Use of Force in a Changing World Order
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 August 2021
Abstract
As part of the roundtable, “The Responsibility to Protect in a Changing World Order: Twenty Years since Its Inception,” this essay asks the reader to consider the role that trust, distrust, and ambivalence play in enabling and constraining the use of force under pillar three of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP). Drawing on interdisciplinary studies on trust, it analyzes the 2011 military intervention in Libya for evidence on how trust, distrust, and ambivalence help explain the positions taken by member states on the United Nations Security Council. In so doing, it challenges the mainstream view that the fallout over Libya represents a shift from trust to distrust. We find this binary portrayal problematic for three reasons. First, it fails to take into account the space in between trust and distrust, which we categorize as ambivalence and use to make sense of the position of Russia and China. Second, it is important to recognize the role of bounded trust, as those that voted in favor of going into Libya did so on certain grounds. Third, it overemphasizes the political fallout, as six of the ten elected member states continued to support the intervention. Learning lessons from this case, we conclude that it is highly unlikely that the Security Council will authorize the use of force to fulfill the RtoP anytime soon, which may have detrimental implications for the RtoP as a whole.
- Type
- Roundtable: The Responsibility to Protect in a Changing World Order
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
Footnotes
1
An earlier version of this article was presented as part of the joint roundtable organized by the British International Studies Working Group on Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect and the European Centre for the Responsibility to Protect on “The Responsibility to Protect in a Changing World Order” (September 17, 2020). We would like to thank participants for comments and questions. We would also like to thank Alex Bellamy and Justin Morris for feedback on earlier versions of this article. Finally, we thank those involved in the review process at Ethics & International Affairs for their close reading and constructive comments.
References
NOTES
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13 Vitaly Churkin, in S/PV.6491 (statement, United Nations Security Council, 6,491st meeting, February 26, 2011), p. 4.
14 Vitaly Churkin, in S/PV.6498 (statement, United Nations Security Council, 6,498th meeting, March 17, 2011), p. 8.
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16 Joe Biden, quoted in ibid., p. 283.
17 Li Baodong, in S/PV.6491, p. 4.
18 United Nations Security Council, Resolution 1973, S/RES/1973 (adopted at the 6,498th meeting of the UNSC, March 17, 2011), p. 3.
19 Li Baodong, in S/PV.6498, p. 10.
20 Jason Ralph and Jess Gifkins, quoted in Rosemary Foot, China, the UN, and Human Protection: Beliefs, Power, Image (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), p. 148.
21 Ibid.
22 United Nations Security Council, S/PV.6650 (meeting minutes, 6,650th meeting, November 9, 2011), p. 25.
23 Adler-Nissen and Pouliot, “Power in Practice,” p. 903.
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25 Adler-Nissen and Pouliot, “Power in Practice,” p. 901.
26 “Remarks by Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri, Permanent Representative at an Informal Interactive Dialogue on the Report of the Secretary General on the Responsibility to Protect: Timely and Decisive Action,” September 5 2012, pminewyork.gov.in/pdf/uploadpdf/13040ind2058.pdf. See also Hardeep Singh Puri, Perilous Interventions: The Security Council and the Politics of Chaos (Noida, Uttar Pradesh: HarperCollins Publishers India, 2016).
27 Susan Rice, quoted in Ben Rhodes, The World as It Is: Inside the Obama White House (London: Bodley Head, 2018), p. 113.
28 Whereas the ABI model uses “benevolence,” we are of the view that this is too demanding a standard for the international level. Instead, we use “intent” to substitute for benevolence. For further discussion on this point, see Wheeler, Trusting Enemies, pp. 52–53.
29 Baso Sangqu, in S/PV.6498, p. 10.
30 Joy Uche Angela Ogwu, in ibid., p. 9.
31 Néstor Osorio, in ibid., p. 7.
32 William J. Burns, The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal (New York: Random House, 2020), p. 318.
33 Reflecting on the crisis, an African Union chairperson claimed the P3 acted with a “sense of superiority.” Jean Ping, quoted in Alexander Beresford, “A Responsibility to Protect Africa from the West? South Africa and the NATO Intervention in Libya,” International Politics 52, no. 3 (May 2015), pp. 288–304, at p. 301.
34 Kurtz and Rotmann, “The Evolution of Norms of Protection,” p. 18.
35 United Nations Security Council, S/PV.6491, p. 4; UNSC, S/PV.6595 (meeting minutes, 6,595th meeting, July 28, 2011), p. 5; and UNSC, S/PV.6620 (meeting minutes, 6,620th meeting, September 16, 2011), p. 6.
36 Gareth Evans, “Libya 2011: The Real R2P Story,” July 10 2020, www.gevans.org/opeds/oped216.html.
37 Jason Ralph and Jess Gifkins, “The Purpose of United Nations Security Council Practice: Contesting Competence Claims in the Normative Context Created by the Responsibility to Protect,” European Journal of International Relations 23, no. 3 (September 2017), p. 633.
38 UNSC, Resolution 1973, p. 3.
39 Ralph and Gifkins, “The Purpose of the United Nations Security Council Practice,” pp. 630–53, at p. 633 (emphasis added).
40 Alex J. Bellamy and Stephen McLoughlin, Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention (London: Red Globe Press, 2018), p. 203.
41 Ralph and Gallagher, “Legitimacy Faultlines in International Society,” p. 554.
42 Security Council Report, quoted in Sarah Brockmeier, Oliver Stuenkel, and Marcos Tourinho, “The Impact of the Libya Intervention Debates on Norms of Protection,” Global Society 30, no. 1 (2016), pp. 113–33, at p. 125.
43 For an analysis reaching such a conclusion, see Puri, Perilous Interventions.
44 Kai Michael Kenkel and Cristina G. Stefan, “Brazil and the Responsibility while Protecting Initiative: Norms and the Timing of Diplomatic Support,” Global Governance 22, no. 1 (2016), pp. 41–58, at p. 45.
45 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, December 2001), pp. 29–39.
46 Ian Clark, Legitimacy in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 191–92.
47 Muammar Qaddafi, quoted in “Libya Protests: Defiant Gaddafi Refuses to Quit,” BBC News, February 22, 2011, www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-12544624.
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