12 - Assigning Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect

Summary

Introduction

I am concerned with an apparently straightforward question: who should undertake humanitarian intervention to help discharge the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP)? Although political and legal issues are important, this question is ultimately a normative one: the humanitarian intervention of which international actor would be morally preferable and, potentially, morally obligatory?

There are two central reasons why the question arises. First, RtoP doctrine does not clearly identify which international actor should intervene. Most versions of RtoP require the United Nations (UN) Security Council to authorise intervention, but this does not identify any particular agent to undertake the action. The problem, as David Miller notes, is one of diffused responsibility. That is, RtoP doctrine asserts a general duty that falls on the international community to do something when the state where the humanitarian crisis is occurring is manifestly failing to tackle the crisis, but does not outline who, in particular, should act. Second, as I will discuss below, there are no outstanding candidates for humanitarian intervention in the international community. The various potential options, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the UN, the African Union (AU), the European Union (EU), states, and private military and security companies (PMSCs), possess some attractive features, but also several sizable drawbacks. The AU, for instance, is sometimes more willing to act, but suffers from large shortfalls in capacity, especially when intervening on a large scale. Certain states, especially the major Western powers, have more military might, but may – and perhaps for good reason – fail to have strong international and domestic support for their intervention. Accordingly, it is not clear which agent in the international community should discharge the humanitarian intervention part of RtoP. As such, I consider who it is that should intervene.

Two Clarifications

Two clarifications are necessary. To start with, let me say something about the relationship between humanitarian intervention and RtoP. It is increasingly common to hear that RtoP does not imply humanitarian intervention. The reasoning behind such moves seems to be the fear that equating humanitarian intervention with RtoP will erode some of the delicate support for the doctrine in the international community, especially amongst certain members of the Non-Aligned Movement.