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VERONIKA BÍLKOVÁ
CYIL 5 ȍ2014Ȏ
Introduction
While celebrating its tenth anniversary, in 2011, the concept of Responsibility to
Protect (hereafter R2P) was challenged from an unexpected side. Brazil, one of the
raising powers, described it as outdated and inadequate, putting forward an alternative
concept of Responsibility while Protecting (hereafter RwP). This paper scrutinizes
RwP with the aim of demonstrating that this concept is not so much an alternative to
R2P as it is an attempt to reinvigorate its original ethos. The paper starts with a short
overview of the evolution of R2P and RwP (section 1). The next section discusses the
content and scope of RwP, offering three different, albeit complementary readings of
the concept (section 2). The third section analyses the relationship between R2P and
RwP, demonstrating the thesis mentioned above. The paper concludes by considering
why RwP, despite its rather non-revolutionary content, has stirred certain negative
reactions and what made Brazil present such a non-innovative concept in the first
place (section 3).
1. From Responsibility to Protect to Responsibility while Protecting
The concept of Responsibility while Protecting appeared as part of the debate
on
Responsibility to Protect.
This latter concept was coined in 2001, as a reaction
to the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan´s call upon states to reflect upon the
dilemma of humanitarian intervention and to find a reasonable compromise between
the prohibition on the use of force and the imperative of effectively halting gross and
systematic violations of human rights, with the aim of preventing future Rwandas
(inaction of the international community) and future Kosovos (unlawful use of force
by a group of states).
1
In response to the call, the Canada-sponsored International
Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (hereafter ICISS), chaired by
the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Australia Gareth Evans and the Algerian
diplomat Mohamed Sahnoun, presented a report entitled
Responsibility to Protect
in
December 2011.
2
The report proposed a new approach, turning attention away from
the right to intervene towards the responsibility of states to protect their own (and,
on a subsidiary basis, also foreign) populations from gross violations of fundamental
human rights.
3
1
UN Doc. SG/SM/7136, GA/9596,
Secretary-General Presents His Annual Report To General Assembly,
20 September 1999.
2
The Responsibility to Protect,
Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State
Sovereignty, The International Development Research Center, Ottawa, December 2001.
3
Under the ICISS report, states are supposed to protect their population from serious harm stemming from
internal war, insurgency, repression and state failure and implying the risk of large scale loss of life or large
scale ethnic cleansing. The responsibility of states encompasses three elements, namely the responsibility
to prevent man-made crises, the responsibility to react to such crises and the responsibility to rebuild the
society after the crises. Although prevention is considered the crucial component of R2P, the concept does
not exclude the use of military force, subjecting it however to strict criteria based on the just war tradition
(just cause, right authority, right intention, last resort, proportional means, reasonable prospects).