R2P and Darfur

Security Dialogue, 2009

This article discusses the international response to the conflict in Darfur from 2003 onwards in order to explore some of the key challenges related to implementing the responsibility to protect (R2P). First, we show that the debates on R2P in connection to Darfur translated into little more substantive action than the pragmatic decision to deploy peace operations with mandates that included civilian protection, as suggested by the African Union (AU) Mission in Sudan (AMIS), and later by the hybrid UN–AU Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). Second, we argue that the international response to Darfur illustrates three major challenges to R2P implementation. These are: political limitations inherent in the R2P framework; moral dilemmas emerging from military action; and tactical challenges, as exemplified by the struggles faced by the AU and the UN in Darfur. We conclude that the international failure to offer meaningful protection in Darfur highlights the need for continued caution and critical analysis of the ways in which R2P is conceptualized and implemented.

The outrage over genocidal violence in Sudan provided impetus to “legalise” the concept of humanitarian intervention into a “responsibility to protect” (R2P). However, a decade on, the literature treats Darfur and R2P as coterminous with failure: continued inaction underscored its limitations in delivering protection to civilians. This article argues that this is an impoverished reading, which leaves out important dynamics. The legacy of Darfur is more usefully understood as a formative experience for further intervention, rather than as a benchmark of (non-)compliance with the specificities of an evolving R2P norm. We analyse an intensifying functional convergence between Western actors, the Chinese Communist Party and the African Union around the practice of intervention, with a view to creating political order and not to foster regime change, on the continent. Darfur, in this reading, was an indicator of the increasing tendency towards approaching Africa through an interventionist lens of stabilisation, more so than the premature abortion of a nascent norm.

2011

This study investigates the failure of the international community, and the R2P framework in particular, to protect at-risk populations in Syria. The study will be based on three case studies, comparing R2P “in action” in Darfur, Libya and Syria. The base hypothesis is that R2P represents progress in providing protection to at-risk populations. What then accounts for its inability to prevent the deaths of 100,000 people in Syria? It aims to clarify the inadequacies of the present UN system for dealing with intra-state conflict. In three parts, the thesis seeks to highlight how R2P is powerless to act to live up to its promises. Part one will introduce the theories around which R2P is conceptualised, bringing the reader up to speed on what R2P is, where it came from, and what it is meant to achieve. Part two, a description and brief analysis of the three most important cases of R2P “in action” since its formal adoption at the 2005 UN World Summit, the cases of Darfur, Libya and Syria, provide the best test of the principle's ability to provide the basis for progress in ending mass atrocity crimes. Part three is an analysis, where I argue that Darfur and Libya provides evidence that R2P does indeed make a positive contribution to the protection of at-risk populations. These two cases evidence that R2P provides an avenue for securitizing issues through speech acts, frames responses and enables action which provides timely protection against the four crimes referred to in the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document. The Syrian case, on the other hand, provides conclusive evidence that the ability of R2P to catalyse action to protect at-risk populations is minimal or non-existent in cases where civil strife occurs in a location of high geopolitical value to great power states. The study further evidences that due to the capacity for the situation in Syria to worsen, as highlighted most recently by the US reaction to the 21st August chemical attacks on East Ghoutta, drawing regional and global powers into conflict, R2P's failure in Syria indicates that reform of the principle, which should focus on addressing its problems, is urgently needed in the interests of global peace and security.

The Oxford Handbook of the Responsibility to Protect. Edited by Alex Bellamy and Tim Dunne

The responsibility to protect (R2P) and the protection of civilians (POC) are distinct but inevitably related ideas. Over the last decade, the relationship between them has come to the foreground of debates within the United Nations (UN) system, generating a considerable degree of consensus but also significant controversy, especially in relation to what role these concepts should play in contemporary UN peacekeeping operations. For advocates of either or both concepts, and for supporters of the UN in general, it is important to get the R2P– POC relationship right because the failure to protect civilians always damages the organization's credibility. The UN's failure to protect more civilians in the 1994 Rwandan genocide has been described as 'the single worst decision the United Nations ever made'. 1 Similar failures persist, perhaps most notably related to the massacres at the end of Sri Lanka's civil war in 2009 which the Secretary-General described as a 'systemic failure' and the ongoing strategy of war crimes perpetrated by the Syrian government against its own people. 2 As UN peacekeepers are now commonly deployed around the globe with explicit mandates to protect civilians, the complex relationship between R2P and POC is likely to come under further scrutiny, not less. It is in that context that this chapter hopes to make a contribution by outlining the key similarities and differences between the two concepts and examining some of the opportunities and challenges of linking them together in the context of UN peacekeeping operations. Throughout this chapter, R2P is understood as a political principle designed to prevent mass atrocity crimes and their incitement. In its 2005 World Summit Outcome Document, the UN General Assembly listed these crimes as genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing (despite the latter not having its own legal standing under international law). 3 R2P is therefore best understood as a moral and political principle rooted in concerns to generate greater respect for the existing

2016

The Darfur conflict, which began in 2003 in western Sudan, stands as one of the most significant humanitarian crises of our time. This complex armed struggle encompasses various aspects, including economic, political, social, cultural, and environmental factors. This paper delves into the conflict’s roots, analyzing how discriminatory policies and the grievances of rebel groups, i.e., the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), escalated into a broader political confrontation with the Sudanese government. The resulting violence led to massive loss of life, prompting international legal action, including the International Criminal Court’s indictment of President Omar al-Bashir for genocide in Darfur. This paper examines the profound demographic impacts of the conflict, particularly the forced displacement of millions to refugee camps, which garnered global attention and spurred various international responses. We analyze the United Nations’ intervention under the “humanitarian intervention” principle, including the deployment of a joint UN-African Union peacekeeping mission (UNAMID) and the establishment of refugee camps by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It also highlights the challenges faced by these international efforts, such as limited access to affected areas and resource constraints. Despite peace initiatives like the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) and UN resolutions, violence has persisted. This paper explores the reasons behind this ongoing conflict and concludes by proposing necessary structural changes for effective conflict resolution, considering potential implications for Sudan’s territorial integrity.

International Affairs and Global Strategy, 2013

Since 2003, Sudan's central government has used proxy forces to slaughter thousands of civilians belonging to ethnic groups associated with the conflict in Darfur in the western region of that country. Serious outside pressure would likely be required to change the regime preferences for repression, as Khartoum has concluded that, if unchecked, the uprising would threaten the regime's survival. The war in Darfur has attracted reactions from the international community that even in some quarters; it has been labeled as genocide. The way Khartoum has handled Darfur's alleged genocide has also not impressed the international community. The development compelled the International Criminal Court to issue a warrant of arrest on the president for allegedly using the janjaweed militias against the innocent citizens of Darfur. The current conflict is one of the most complex war situations which has defied attempts made by the international community to resolve it. The African Union has been admirably engaged in the Darfur crisis but has ultimately been ineffectual due to poor resources and weak political will. At the same time, Khartoum intransigence and diplomatic protection provided for it by China has blunted the ambitious steps taken by the United Nations Security Council. However, the crisis in Darfur presents the international community with the opportunity of testing its avowed commitment to human security. The introduction of the responsibility to protect principle into the debate on civilian protection gives an added impetus for the international community to act in protection of the Darfurians. This paper attempts to interrogate the applicability of this concept to the resolution of the conflict in Darfur.

Journal of International Peacekeeping, 2009

This paper examines the failure of the African Mission in Sudan (AMIS) to provide protection to civilians in Darfur, and considers the relevance, in this context, of the emerging doctrine of responsibility to protect. It is argued that while the existence of the responsibility to protect has been widely endorsed, there has been relatively scant attention paid to its content. In the context of the AMIS intervention in Darfur, this paper considers the question of what the responsibility to protect actually entails: for peace-support operations, for the states that send them, and most importantly, for the civilian population that expects to be protected by the soldiers sent to protect them. Because the responsibility to protect (as described by the International Commission on State Sovereignty (ICISS) and endorsed by the UN Secretary General, the General Assembly and the Security Council) says little as to positive obligations, such as might require peacesupport operations to actively ...