The responsibility to prevent: Assessing the gap between rhetoric and reality
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836715613364 |
| Date | 01 June 2016 |
| Published date | 01 June 2016 |
| Author | Jennifer Welsh |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Cooperation and Conflict
2016, Vol. 51(2) 216 –232
© The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836715613364
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The responsibility to prevent:
Assessing the gap between
rhetoric and reality
Jennifer Welsh
Abstract
This article engages with the debate on the efficacy of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in
the wake of the Arab Spring by articulating a defence of its role in preventing the commission,
escalation, or recurrence of atrocity crimes. Taking as its starting point the claim by UN Secretary-
General (UNSG) Ban Ki-moon that prevention remains the most important aspect of the principle
of R2P, the article illustrates the extent to which prevention is embedded in R2P, the means by
which it can be leveraged, and the obstacles to its operationalisation. The first section outlines
why and how the prevention of the four crimes identified in the 2005 World Summit Outcome
Document became so important to UN member states. The second section analyses efforts to
implement the commitment to prevention within the UN, regional organisations, and individual
states. The final section offers an explanation for why prevention is in fact a controversial practice
– despite the universal rhetorical commitment to its prioritisation – and advances a series of steps
which might be undertaken to advance it.
Keywords
Arab Spring, atrocity crimes, norms, prevention, Responsibility to Protect
Introduction
When analysing the impact of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) on events related to the
Arab Spring, scholars focus largely on the principle’s capacity (or incapacity) to catalyse
a timely and decisive response from the international community to situations in the
Middle East. This has manifested most commonly in criticisms of the international
response to the crisis in Syria, such as those articulated by Aidan Hehir in this special
issue. This article, by contrast, takes as its starting point the claim made by UN Secretary-
General (UNSG) Ban Ki-moon, that prevention remains the most important aspect of the
principle of R2P (Ban Ki-moon, 2012).1 R2P is much more than just a means by which
Corresponding author:
Jennifer Welsh, European University Institute, Badia Fiesolana – SPS, Via dei Roccettini 9, 50014 San
Domenico di Fiesole, Italy.
Email: jennifer.welsh@eui.eu
613364CAC0010.1177/0010836715613364Cooperation and ConflictWelsh
research-article2015
Article
Welsh 217
the international community can react – militarily or otherwise – to the commission of
atrocity crimes; a central component of R2P since its inception in 2001 has been the
‘Responsibility to Prevent’ (ICISS, 2001a: xi). The preventive dimension of R2P has the
advantage of being a means to forestall atrocity crimes and to reduce the costs of inter-
national engagement. It has also commanded greater political support from states than
reactive intervention, and thus helps to build a firmer foundation for further evolution of
the principle. The central purposes of this article are therefore twofold: to temper the
negative assessments of R2P’s impact by emphasising the potential inherent in the
responsibility to prevent; and to frame future discussions on how to better operationalise
prevention. As the UNSG lamented in his 2014 Report to the General Assembly, there is
still too little concrete commitment to prevention, and resources remain skewed towards
crisis response (Ban Ki-moon, 2014: para 73).
The first section below explains why the prevention of the four crimes and violations
identified in the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document (UN, 2005) became so impor-
tant to both member states and the UN Secretariat, and outlines subsequent efforts to
implement the commitment to prevention within the UN, regional organisations, and
within individual states. The second section focuses on why prevention is in fact a con-
troversial practice – despite the almost universal rhetorical commitment to its prioritisa-
tion – and suggests a series of measures that might be undertaken to advance it.
Prioritising prevention
It has long been clear that preventing conflict and atrocity crimes is preferable to
responding to them. This is evident both in terms of relative human suffering and in
terms of the comparative financial and political costs involved (Carnegie Commission
on Preventing Deadly Conflict, 1997; Miall, 2004). Prevention can take many forms,
from long-term structural assistance, to more short-term, pre-emptive action designed
to forestall what is perceived to be an impending catastrophe (Fein, 2009: 321–322;
ICISS, 2001b: 27; UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to
Protect, 2014: 2). Both sets of measures, however, are characterised by the same
underlying logic: that prevention is both possible – and hence violence is not inevi-
table – and more conducive to international peace and security than post-conflict
reaction.
Among the key constitutive elements of the principle of R2P, prevention has been
singled out by many as the most critical (Adams, 2013: 1; Evans, 2008: 79). Both schol-
ars and policy-makers have argued that it is advantageous to act to prevent atrocity
crimes from being committed, given the barriers and high costs of reacting once they are
already underway (Bellamy, 2011; Global Responsibility to Protect, 2011; Stamnes,
2008).2 In the blunt words of the ICISS:
In Kosovo, almost any kind of preventive activity – whether it involved more effective
preventive diplomacy, or the earlier and sharper application of coercive preventive measures
like the credible threat of ground-level military action – would have had to be cheaper than the
$46 billion the international community is estimated to have committed…in fighting the war
and following up with peace-keeping and reconstruction (2001a: 71).
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