The Responsibility to Protect

Author(s): Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Foreign Affairs, Vol. 81, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 2002), pp. 99-110
Published by: Council on Foreign Relations
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20033347 .
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But what is involved in the debates about intervention inAfghanistan. Iraq. Rwanda.was published inDecember 2001 and is now available on www. There were no agreed rules for handling cases such as Somalia. policy attention has been captured by a different set of problems: the response to global terrorism and the case for "hot preemption" against countries believed to be irre sponsibly acquiringweapons of mass destruction. how andwhen it should be exercised. The Responsibility to Protect. and elsewhere is the scope and limits of countries' rights to GARETH EVANS is President and Chief Executive Officer of the International Crisis Group and former Foreign Minister of Australia. Since September 1i. MOHAMED SAHNOUN isSpecialAdviser onAfrica to theUN Secretary General and a former senior Algerian diplomat. however. especiallyconcerning the precautionary principles that should apply to any military action anywhere. and under whose authority. [99] . They co-chaired the InternationalCommission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). are conceptually and practically distinct. Bosnia.iciss-ciise. and Kosovo at the start of the 1990S. and there remain none today. There are in deed common questions. 2001. whose report. The Resp ibili o Protect Gareth Erans andMohamed Sahnoun REVISITING HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION THE INTERNATIONAL in the lastdecade repeatedly COMMUNITY made a mess of handling the many demands that were made for "humanitarian intervention": coercive action against a state to protect people within its borders from suffering grave harm.Dis agreement continues about whether there is a right of intervention.ca.These issues.gc.

and great misgivings surrounded the means by which the allies waged thewar. the UN action taken (if taken at all) was widely perceived as too little too late. in political capitals.or all of the above. And then the question will arise again in the Security Council. the debateabout interventionforhumanprotection purposes has not gone away. and China. Europe.And itwill not go away so long as human nature remains as fallible as it is and internal conflict and state failures stay as prevalent as they are. to intervene elsewhere to protect peoples other than theirown.poorly executed. It is only a matter of time before reports emerge again from somewhere of massacres. and North America and consulted comprehensively in Latin America. and in the media: What do we do? This time around the international community must have the answers. Cornelio Sommaruga. mass starvation.misconceived. and ethnic cleansing. Vladimir Lukin. Michael Ignatieff. Fidel Ramos. Lee Hamilton. theMiddle East.Haiti in 1994. there must be no more Rwandas. We met as a commission inAfrica. the government of Canada established the ICISS. But in Somalia in 1993. This article is a distillation of the report.During NATO'S 1999 intervention inKosovo. by varying casts of actors. has repeatedly challenged the General Assembly to find away through these dilemmas.' Few things have done more harm to its shared ideal that people are all equal inworth and dignity than the inability of the community of states to prevent these horrors. Sierra Leone in 1997. and (not strictly coercively) East Timor in 1999. Our col leagues were Gisele Cote-Harper. or obligation. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Asia. In this new century. Klaus Naumann. and Bosnia in 1995. Russia. the legaljustificationfor actionwithout UN authoritywas asserted but largely unargued. But in the debates that followed his calls. The debate was certainly a lively one throughout the 1990s. Rwanda in 1994. poorly resourced. GarethEvans andMohamed Sahnoun act in self-defense-not their right. deeply troubled by the inconsis tency of the international response. in Liberia in 1990. Eduardo Stein. Controversy may have been muted in the case of the interventions. [10Oo] 6 FORE IGN AFFAI RS-Volume 8i NMo. northern Iraq in 1991. rape. Meanwhile. he was rewarded for themost part by cantankerous exchanges inwhich fervent supporters of intervention ' In September 2000. Cyril Ramaphosa. SecurityCouncil members were sharply divided. . and Ramesh Thakur.

women from systematic rape. First. or if it cannot be exercised. Only if that state is unable or unwilling to fulfill its responsibility to protect. SOVEREIGNTY AS RESPONSIBILITY USING this alternative languagewill help shake up the policy debate. should the international community take the respon sibility to act in its place. The issue must be reframed not as an argument about the "right to intervene" but about the "responsibility to protect."The latter term has always deeply concerned humanitarian relief organizations. The searchlight is back where it should always be: on the duty to protect communities from mass killing. Bringing them back to center stage should help make the concept of reaction itselfmore palatable. talking about the "responsibility to protect" rather than the "right to intervene" has three other big advantages.dug themselvesdeeperanddeeper intoopposing trenches. embracing not just the "responsibility to react"but the "responsibility to prevent" and the "responsibility to rebuild"aswell. TheResponsibility toProtect on human rights grounds. Third. rather than thosewho may be considering intervention. If the international community is to respond to this challenge. opposed by anxious defenders of state sov ereignty. Both of these dimensions have been much neglected in the traditional humanitarian-intervention debate. the "responsibility to protect" is an umbrella concept. from control to responsibility.Beyond that." And it has to be accepted that although this responsibility is owed by all sovereign states to their own citizens in the first instance. Second. In the FORE IGN AF FA IRS November/December 2002 [i1oi1] . it implies evaluating the issues from the point of view of those needing support. this formulation implies that the primary responsibility restswith the state concerned. getting governments in particular to think afresh about what the real issuesare. itmust be picked up by the internationalcommunityif that first-tierresponsibilityis abdicated. which have hated the association of "humanitarian"with military ac tivity. the whole debate must be turned on its head. and children from starvation. or is itself the perpetrator. At the heart of this conceptual approach is a shift in thinking about the essence of sovereignty.Changingtheterminology from"intervention" to"protection" gets away from the language of "humanitarian intervention.

Sovereignty as responsibility has become the minimum content of good international citizenship.andother within its territorial exclusiveand totaljurisdiction states have the corresponding duty not to intervene in its internal affairs. a largeand growing gap has been developing behavioras articulatedin the state-centered between international UN Charter.6 . sovereignty is now understood as embracing this dual responsibility. It isnow commonly acknowledged that sovereignty implies a dual responsibility: externally. In international human rights covenants. which now emphasizesthe limitsof sovereignty.The principleof sovereignequalityof states is enshrinedinArticle 2.Section 7: a sovereign state is empowered by international law to exercise borders.which was signed in 1946.But working against this standardhas been the increasing impact in recent decades of human rights norms. and in state practice itself. to respect the dignity and basic rights of all the people within the state. in UN practice. andwhen the state [10 2] FORE IGN AFFAIRS Vo/ume 81No.of theUNCharter. If preventive measures fail to resolve or contain such a situation. bringing a shift from a culture of sovereign impunity to one of national and internationalaccountability. MILITARY INTERVENTION: SETTING THE BAR toprotect impliesaduty to reactto situations THE RESPONSIBILITY inwhich there is compelling need for human protection.the defining characteristic of sovereignty has always been the state's capacity to make authoritativedecisions regardingthe people and resources within its territory. In short.even thestrongestsupporters of statesovereignty will admit today that no state holds unlimited power to do what itwants to its own people. it is sufficiently accepted in practice to be regarded as a de facto emergingnorm:the responsibilitytoprotect. The increasing influence hasalsoplayed ofthe conceptof humansecurity a role:what matters is not just state security but the protection of in dividuals against threats to life. and internally. or dignity that can come from within orwithout. and evolving state practice since then.and the corre spondingnormof noninterventionisenshrinedinArticle 2. livelihood. Indeed. Section 1. GarethEvans andMohamed Sahnoun classicWestphalian systemof internationalrelations. Although this new principle cannot be said tobe customary international law yet. to respect the sovereignty of other states.

The secondis large-scale stateneglect.or rape.and the requirement of "rightauthority. whether carriedoutby killing.if any.There isalsoapracticalpoliticalrationale:if interventionis to happen when it ismost necessary.Coercivemeasures thenmay include political. For it to be warranted. TheResponsibility toProtect in question is unable or unwilling to step in. we do not quantify what is "large scale"but make clear our belief thatmilitary action can be legitimateas an anticipatorymeasure in responseto clearevidence of likelylarge-scale killingor ethniccleansing.who should have the ultimate authority to determine whether an intrusion into a sovereignstate. should actuallygo ahead?These questions have generated but on the an enormousliteratureandmuch competingterminology.To justifymilitary intervention. our startingpointis that militaryintervention forhumanprotectionpurposesisanextraordinary measure. inabilityto act. The first is large-scale loss of life. with genocidalintentor not.fourprecautionary principles. actual or anticipated." OPERATION JUST CAUSE As FOR THE "JUST CAUSE" THRESHOLD.which is theproductof deliberatestateaction. In the twosituationsidentifiedas legitimatetriggers. civilians must be faced with the threat of serious and irreparableharm in one of just two exceptional ways."actualor anticipated. most of it derived from"justwar" theory.shouldapply indeterminingwhether andhow that interventionshouldproceed?And. core issues there is a great deal of common ground.or statefailure. it cannot be called on too often. or judicial steps. then intervention by other statesmay be required. Why does the bar for just cause need to be set so high? There is theconceptualreasonthatmilitary intervention must be very excep tional.sixprinciples have to be satisfied:the "justcause"threshold. most difficultof all.November/December 2002 [ 10o3] . "ethniccleansing. In extreme cases-but only extreme cases-they may also include military action. involvingthe use of deadly forceon a potentially massive scale. economic. forcedexpulsion. But what is an extreme case?Where should we draw the line in determining What other conditionsor when military interventionis defensible? restraints. the internationalcommunity would be placedin themorallyuntenable FO RE IGN AFFA IRS .actsof terror. Without thispossibility.

the first is "rightintention. The threshold criteria articu lated here not only cover the deliberate perpetrationof horrors such as in the cases of Bosnia.whatever othermotives interveningstatesmay have.Moreover. Complete disinterestedness may be an ideal. and Kosovo. Another is to look at the extent towhich the intervention is actually supported by the people forwhose benefit the intervention is intended. One is to have military interventionalwaystakeplaceon a collectiveormultilateral basis.Although deserving of external action-including in appropriate cases political. [104] FOREIGN AFFAIRS Volume 8iNo. must be to halt or avert human suffering. are a factof life. Also potentially coveredwould be overwhelming natural or environ mental catastrophes. as in Somalia. and the rescue by a state of its own nationals on foreign territory.6 . Rwanda.inwhich the stateconcernediseitherunwilling or unable to help and significant loss of life is occurring or threat ened. Yet another is to look towhat extent the opinion of other countries in the region has been taken into account and is supportive. in international relations as everywhere else.howeveraltruisticitsprimarymotive. There are a number of ways of helping ensure that this criterion is satisfied. PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLES OF THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLES needed to justify inter vention.What arenot coveredby our "justcause"thresholdcriteria arehuman rightsviolations falling shortof outright killing or eth nic cleansing (such as systematic racialdiscriminationor political oppression). GarethEvans andMohamed Sahnoun position of being required towait until genocide begins before being able to take action to stop it. economic. They can also apply to situationsof state collapse and the resultantexposureof the population to mass starvation or civil war. but it is not likely always to be a reality:mixed motives. the budgetary cost and risk to personnel involved in anymilitary action may make it imperative for the inter vening state to be able to claim some degree of self-interest in the intervention."The primarypurposeof the intervention. or military sanctions these are not instances that would seem to justify military action forhuman protection purposes. the overthrow of democratically elected govern ments.

it isdifficult to imagine amajor conflict being avoided or success in the original objective being achieved. on purelyutilitarian grounds. the principles involved are clearenough. Otherwise.the consequencesof action should not be worse than the consequences of inaction. towhich there is only one answer:The reality that interventions may not be plausibly mounted in every justifiable case isno reason for them not tobemounted in any case. Applying thisprecautionaryprinciplewould. The same is true for other major powers that are not permanent members of the Security Council.duration. FO RE IGN A FFA IRS 2002 NovJember/December [10 5 ] . Finally. The responsibility to reactwith military coercion can be justified only when the responsibility to prevent has been fully dis charged. The thirdprinciple is "proportional and intensity of the planned military intervention should be the minimum necessary to secure the defined objectiveof protecting people. This raises the familiar question of double standards.Although theprecisepracticalimplicationsof these strictures are always open to argument. even with all other conditionsfor interventionhavingbeenmet. there is the principle of "reasonable prospects": there must be a reasonable chance of success in halting or averting the suffering that has justified the intervention. circumstances. given the othermeasureswould not have succeeded. Military action must not risk triggering a greater conflagration. often there is simply not enough time for that process towork itself out. TheResponsibility toProtect principleis "lastresort": The secondprecautionary military inter vention can be justified only when every nonmilitary option for the prevention or peaceful resolution of the crisis has been explored. likely preclude military action against any one of the five permanent members of the Security Council. This guideline does not necessarily mean that every such option must literally have been tried and failed. But it does mean that theremust be reasonable grounds for believing that. The effect on the political systemof the country targetedshould be limited towhat is strictly necessary to accomplish the interven tion'spurpose. The scale of action taken must be commensurate with its stated purpose andwith themagnitude of the original provocation. with reasonable grounds for believing lesser measures would not have succeeded. means": the scale.

And the council's five [106] FOREIGN AFFAIRS Volume 8iNo. in this context. The authority of the UN is underpinned not by coercive power but by its role as the applicator of legitimacy. The Security Council should deal promptly with any request for authority to intervene where there are allegations of large-scale loss of life or ethnic cleansing. ask the council to raise thematter on its own initiative. 6 .The concept of legitimacy acts as the connecting link between the exercise of authority and the recourse to power. but tomake the council work better than it has. The difficult question-starkly raised by the Kosovo war-is whether it should be the last. also seek adequate verification of facts or conditions on the ground that might support amilitary intervention. should be the first port of call. The task is not to find alternatives to the Security Council as a source of authority. the framework within which members of the international system negotiate agreements on the rules of behavior and the legal norms of proper conduct to preserve the society of states. Nations regard collective interventionblessedby theUNas legitimatebecausea representative international body duly authorized it. be sought prior to any military intervention being carried out.whereas unilateral intervention is seen as illegitimate because it is self-interested. Itwas set up to be the linch pin of order and stability." When it comes to authorizingmilitary interven tion forhumanprotectionpurposes. consolidating.theargumentiscompellingthat theUnited Nations. Those advocates calling for an intervention should formally request such autho rization. Attempts to enforce authority can be made only by the legitimate agents of that authority. or demand that the secretary-general raise it under Article 99 of the UN Charter. in all cases. The UN isunquestionably the principal institutionfor building. It should. The issueof principlehere isunarguable. and in particularits SecurityCouncil. GarethEvans andMohamed Sahnoun WHOSE AUTHORITY? THEMOSTDIFFICULT and controversialprinciple to apply is that of "rightauthority. Security Council authorization should. Those who challenge or evade the authority of the UN run the risk of eroding its authority in general and undermining the principle of aworld order based on international law and universal norms.and using the authority of the international community.

Security Council work tion in theRwanda andKosovo cases.theSecurityCouncil will clearly have to be at the heart of that consensus. that iswhat happened with theWest African interventions in Liberia in the early 1990S and in Sierra Leone in 1997. then. its membership. other is action within an area of jurisdic tionby regionalor subregional organizations under Chapter viii of the UN Charter. Egypt in 1956. that The task is tomake the approach could well have delivered a speedymajority recommendationfor ac.As amatter of political reality.The better than it has. the General Assembly. But interventions by ad hoc coalitions (or individual states) acting without the approval of the Security Council. But there is no better or more appropriate body than the Security Council to deal with military intervention issues for human protection purposes. FO0RE IGN A FFA IRS NMovember/December 2002 [ 10 7] . One is for the General Assembly to consider thematter in an emergency special session under the "Uniting for Peace" procedure.The political reality-quite apart from the force of the argument in principle-is that if internationalconsensus is ever to be reached abouthowmilitary interventionshouldhappen. We know of at least one that will so agree. There aremany reasons to be dissatisfied with the role that the Security Council usually plays: its generally uneven performance. two institutional solutions are available.Had itbeen used. used in the cases of Korea in 1950. If the Security Council isunable or unwilling to act in a case crying out for intervention. TheResponsibility toProtect permanent members should agree to not exercise their veto power (in matters where their vital state interests are not involved) to block resolutions authorizing military intervention for human protectionpurposes forwhich there isotherwisemajority support. subject to their seeking subsequent authorization from the Security Council. it would simply be impossible to build consensus around any set of proposals for military intervention that acknowledged the validity of any intervention not authorized by the Security Council or General Assembly. andCongo in1960.and its inherentinstitutionaldouble unrepresentative standardswith the permanent-five veto power. or a regional or sub regional grouping do not findwide international favor.

The UN cannot afford to drop the ball too many times on that scale. 6 . The answer to this dilemma is twofold.without the discipline and constraintsof UN authorization. if the council does fail to act and amilitary intervention by an ad hoc coalition or individual state follows and respects all the necessary threshold and precautionary criteria-and if that inter vention succeeds and is seen by theworld to have succeeded-this outcome may have enduringly serious consequences for the stature of the UN itself This is essentially what happened with the NATO intervention in Kosovo. First. itwill be answered. Second. even a decision by the Security Council to authorize international action in humanitarian cases has been no guarantee that any action would be taken.unless the political will ismustered to actwhen necessary. and these messages have to be delivered loud and clear. GarethEvans andMohamed Sahnoun But what if the Security Council fails to discharge its own respon sibilityto protect in a conscience-shockingsituationcryingout for action. will not be conducted for the right reasons or with the right commitment to the necessaryprecautionaryprinciples. It follows that therewill be a risk that such interventions. aswas the casewith Kosovo? A real question arises as towhich of two evils is the worse: the damage to international order if the Security Council is bypassed. As events during the 1990S too often demonstrated. The most compelling task now is to work to ensure that when the call for action goes out to the community of states. Part of the problem is that there are few countries in the global community who have the assets most in demand in implementing intervention mandates. or taken effectively. or the damage to that order if human beings are slaughtered while the Security Council stands by. the debate will be largely academic. if the Security Council does fail to discharge its responsibility in such a case. There are real constraints on how much [1o8] FOREIGN AFFAIRS Vo/ume8iNo. then concerned individual states simply may not rule out other means to address the gravity and urgency of the situation. THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL WILL As IMPORTANTas it is to reach consensus on the principles that shouldgovern interventionfor human protectionpurposes.

000 personnel. if NATO andothermultinational forceoperations (e.National interest appeals are the most comfortable and effective of all and can be made at many different levels. With the world as interdependent as it now is.OOO. humanitarianrelief assistance. Moral appeals inspire and legitimize in almost any political environ ment: political leaders often underestimate the sheer sense of decency and compassion that prevails among their electorates.or all three. there is no alternative but to generate the necessary political will in the relevant constituencies. to U3..g. Even states willing in principle to look at new foreign military commitments need tomake choices about how to use limited and strainedmilitary capabilities. If coercive action is required. It is usually helpfiul to press three buttons in particular. If the right choices are to be made in the right situations. nowadays peace is generally regarded as much better for business than iswar. given the refugee outflows and general regional security destabilization associated with it. trade routes.postconflict reconstruction.The key tomobilizing internationalsupportfor intervention is to mobilize domestic support. today." the best short answer may be that these days good international citizenship is amatter of national self-interest. or at least to neutralize domestic opposition. TheResponsibility toProtect spare capacity exists to take on additional burdens. and with crises as capable as they now areof generating majorproblemselsewhere(suchas terrorism. For those domestic constituencieswho may actuallydemand that theirgovernmentsnot bemoved by altruistic"rightintention. Avoiding the disintegration of a neighbor. however. and markets undisrupted.refugee FO RE IGN A FFA IRS . And whatever may have been the case in the past. inAfghanistan) are includedalongwith UNmissions. earlier is always cheaper than later.November/December 2002 [ 10 9] . United Nations peacekeeping peaked in 1993 at 78. Too often more time is spent lamenting the absence of political will than on analyzing its ingredients and how tomobilize them. Financial arguments also have their place: preventive strategies are likely to be far cheaper than responding after the event throughmilitary action.National economic interests often can be equally well served by keeping resource supply lines. can be a compellingmotive inmany contexts. the numberof soldiers in inter national peace operations has grown by about 45 percent.

quite apart from the humanitarian imperative. more tragedies such as Rwanda will be all too likely. 6 . the mistakes of the 1990Swill not be repeated. But until there is general acceptance of the practical com mitments this involves. narcotics trafficking. It is the responsibility of the whole international community to ensure thatwhen the next case of threatened mass killing or ethnic cleansing invariably comes along. at least informally.0 [11o] FOREIGN AFFAIRS Vo/ume8iNo.and organized crime). GarethEvans andMohamed Sahnoun outflows. There is a developing consensus around the idea that sovereignty must be qualified by the responsibility to protect. health pandemics. So too would be a declaratory UN General Assembly resolution giving weight to those principles and to thewhole idea of the "responsibility to protect" as an emerging international norm. to systematically apply the principles set out here to any such case.A good place to startwould be agreement by the Security Council. it is in everycountry'sinteresttohelp resolvesuchproblems.