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RESPONSIBILITY WHILE PROTECTING ȃ AN ALTERNATIVE TO R2P…
In fact, the course of the events indicates that Brazil has not learnt how to handle
such a situation either. Optimistic and enthusiastic about the new initiative at the
beginning, it seems to have reconsidered its position, once objections were raised
against it, becoming much more cautious and unsure about what it wants to achieve.
Instead of explaining the added value of RwP and working on a more detailed
content of the concept, Brazil has adopted a defensive, if not defeatist stance, with all
its recent statements being limited to generalities. This brings in the
second question
as
to why Brazil engaged in this exercise in the first place. While no simple explanation
is available, it seems that two factors have played a major role in this context.
One factor has to do with Brazil and its status of a rising power. It might be that
Brazil simply wanted to test what new options are available and how far it can go.
Moreover, R2P/RwP seemed to be a useful framework covering many of the long-
term priorities that Brazil, as well as other rising countries of the BRICS/G5/IBSA
promote including the strengthening of the collective security system, the reform
of the UN Security Council, the enhancement of peaceful solution of disputes, etc.
Opening the debate over such questions and engaging in this debate with a more
pro-active stance is certainly legitimate and it is thus to be regretted that Brazil, as it
seems, has given up the test case with RwP so easily.
The second factor related to R2P itself. Afraid that this concept could meet the
same fate as its predecessor, humanitarian intervention, i.e. being discredited due to
its failed implementation, Brazil in 2011 tried to do something similar as, in fact,
the ICISS did in 2001. It sought to partly rephrase the debate, using words which
should have appealed both to the Global North (sovereignty as responsibility) and
to the Global South (limits on the use of force). Unlike the ICISS, it did not seek to
go beyond the original concept – that of R2P in its case and that of humanitarian
intervention in case of the ICISS. Again, it can be regretted that this “rescue operation”
has not truly worked and that RwP has been reserved a mistrustful reception by
most states. Although partly blameable upon Brazil itself, its foreign policy doing
little to make RwP comprehensible to others and to attract international support,
this failure can at the same time be seen as a sign indicating the unwillingness of the
international community to think – about itself and about the concept it promotes
– outside the box.