CYIL 2014

VERONIKA BÍLKOVÁ

CYIL 5 ȍ2014Ȏ

subsequently implemented. Thus, RwP seeks to ensure that the use of force would

not be authorised when other means are still available and that, when authorised, it

would remain under the control of the UN Security Council. Although such attempts

may not be welcome by some for political reasons, it could hardly be claimed that

they go against and are incompatible with the original ethos of R2P. Now, if this is

so, why is it that the RwP concept has given rise to such a criticism even among states

generally supportive of R2P? And what was it that motivated Brazil to present such

a non-innovative concept in the first place?

In response to the

first question

it is useful to recall that the criticism of RwP is

generally founded on three grounds, having to do with what the concept encompasses

(content) and when and by whom it was put forward (timing, author). The content

of the concept, as we have just seen, is not truly new. The Brazilian author Oliver

Stuenckel is right to claim that

“all the arguments and proposals that appear in the RwP

concept developed by Brazil have been made, in one way or the other, in the past”.

Yet,

to use again Stuenckel´s words,

“the novelty was much more Brazil´s decision to bring

them together under the RwP header and support them explicitly in their entirety”

Thus, it is the comprehensive character of the concept and its focus on certain, so far

largely (and probably intentionally) neglected elements of R2P, which makes states

vigilant. This goes both for the states of the Global North, fearing that the emphasis

upon the control of the R2P military operations could tight their hands, and for the

states of the Global South, seeing RwP as an initiative aimed at further developing

and strengthening a problematic, sovereignty-hostile concept.

The temporal and personal elements have most likely added to the criticism

against RwP. The concept was put forward at the moment in which the international

community was divided over the Operation United Protector in Libya. To recall,

in October 2011, Brazil abstained from the vote on Resolution 1973, authorising

this operation, and in early 2012, it refused to support the use of military measures

against Syria. Its putting forward the concept of RwP at this very moment might

have been interpreted as an attempt to further block the application of R2P, by the

Global North, and, somewhat paradoxically, as a sign of the inadequacy of Brazil’s

opposition to what was seen as neo-imperalism, by the Global South.

The fact that RwP has been presented by one of the rising powers is also of

relevance. Traditionally assigned the role of norm-takers rather than norm-makers,

rising powers have so far made little to discard such a division of roles. When Brazil

suddenly tried with RwP, it took everyone by surprise and gave rise to general

mistrust. The North is reluctant to open the circle of norm-makers, up to now largely

reserved to the developed states and their NGOs. The South, on its turn, has not so

far learnt how to handle a situation, in which one of their peers comes in with more

than an

ad hoc

initiative.

Oliver Stuenckel,

Brazil as a norm interpreneur, op. cit.,

p. 60.

Ibid.