Responding to Failure: The Responsibility to Protect after Libya
| Published date | 01 June 2016 |
| Date | 01 June 2016 |
| Author | Christopher Hobson |
| DOI | 10.1177/0305829816640607 |
| Subject Matter | Conference Articles |
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2016, Vol. 44(3) 433 –454
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0305829816640607
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Responding to Failure:
The Responsibility to
Protect after Libya
Christopher Hobson
Waseda University, Japan
Abstract
During its first decade in existence, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine has struggled
to transcend the complexities that plague humanitarian action. This article examines the political
challenges that shape the practice of R2P, as well as the discourse that informs it. It reflects on
the constant presence of failure that haunts humanitarian intervention, and argues for a more
humble stance on what is possible in such situations. Humility entails meditating on human limits,
both physical and mental, which serves as an important guide in determining action. It promotes
a more chastened position; one that acknowledges that right intentions might not lead to just
outcomes, that there are real limits on the ability of external actors to understand or control
events during and following an intervention, and that our ability to comprehend such complex
situations should warn against premature judgements and confident conclusions. And when
failure occurs, it means not denying or avoiding it, but facing it squarely and reckoning with
the consequences. The value of adopting a more humble approach will be considered through
examining the 2011 Libyan intervention, a significant case for the R2P doctrine. There, success
appears to have been exchanged for failure, leaving challenging and unresolved questions about
what this experience means for Libya and R2P.
Keywords
R2P, Libya, humility, classical realism
Introduction
Failure lies at the heart of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine. It was born partly
in response to the failures to act in Rwanda in 1994 and Srebrenica in 1995, as well as
the inability to respond within the legal framework of the United Nations (UN) in Kosovo
Corresponding author:
Christopher Hobson, School of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University, 1-6-1 Nishi-Waseda,
Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-8050, Japan.
Email: hobsonce@gmail.com
640607MIL0010.1177/0305829816640607Millennium: Journal of International StudiesHobson
research-article2016
Conference Article
434 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 44(3)
1. United Nations, 2005 World Summit Outcome (New York: United Nations, 2005), 30.
2. Cristina G. Badescu and Linnea Bergholm, ‘The Responsibility to Protect and the Conflict
in Darfur: The Big Let-Down’, Security Dialogue 40, no. 3 (2009): 287–309; Nick Grono,
‘Briefing – Darfur: The International Community’s Failure to Protect’, African Affairs 105,
no. 421 (2006): 621–31; UNSG Internal Review Panel, Report of the Secretary-General’s
Internal Review Panel on United Nations Action in Sri Lanka (New York: United Nations,
November 2012); David Rieff, ‘R2P, R.I.P.’, The New York Times, 7 November 2011.
Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/opinion/r2p-rip.html. Last accessed March
13, 2016; Simon Adams, Failure to Protect: Syria and the UN Security Council (New York:
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, 2015).
3. Roland Paris, ‘The “Responsibility to Protect” and the Structural Problems of Preventive
Humanitarian Intervention’, International Peacekeeping 21, no. 5 (2014): 570.
4. Stephen Hopgood, ‘The Last Rites for Humanitarian Intervention’, Global Responsibility to
Protect 6, no. 2 (2014): 194.
in 1999. The hope was that R2P would overcome the ad hoc and inconsistent nature of
humanitarian interventions in the 1990s, in the process making sovereignty conditional
on respecting human rights and instituting a responsibility for the international commu-
nity to protect civilians when a state is ‘manifestly failing’ to do so.1 For some, it repre-
sented nothing less than a reinterpretation of the foundational principle of international
relations. For others, it did little to resolve the core dilemmas of humanitarian interven-
tion and potentially made matters worse. Following the adoption of R2P in the 2005
World Summit Outcome document, scholars and commentators have carefully tracked
the development of this putative norm. With each humanitarian emergency comes a fresh
round of questions about whether R2P has succeeded or failed, and in turn, what it means
for the future of the doctrine. Darfur was dubbed a ‘failure to protect’ and ‘the big let-
down’; an internal report described the UN’s handling of human rights abuses in Sri
Lanka as a ‘grave failure’, and noted that, during the crisis, R2P’s ‘meaning and use had
become so contentious as to nullify its potential value’; as the Libyan intervention mor-
phed into regime change, R2P was announced ‘R.I.P.’; and in Syria, the international
community has ‘dismally failed to uphold its responsibility to protect’.2
These failings suggest that during its first decade in existence R2P has struggled to
transcend the complexities that plague humanitarian action. With each new case, the
international community faces what could be termed ‘the intervener’s dilemma’: if there
is no intervention, and disaster follows, the lack of action is widely condemned; but if
there is intervention, and the manner in which it unfolds subsequently undermines the
original humanitarian logic, this is also deeply troubling.3 The contrasting cases of
Srebrenica and Kosovo reflect this ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ logic. As
Hopgood recalls, the former case led to the eventual resignation of the entire Dutch gov-
ernment, a fate that would have been highly unlikely had they chosen not to intervene at
all.4 In contrast, Kosovo has been dogged by questions about the necessity and legality
of the intervention, and has subsequently served as a useful rhetorical alibi for Russia.
Yet, in these and other cases, the basic problem remains that a decision – action or con-
scious inaction – is required sooner or later, and often, sooner. To date, it appears that the
R2P doctrine has not offered a way out of this dilemma.
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