The UN General Assembly Passes Resolution on R2P
The sixty-third UN General Assembly (GA) meeting at its 105th and 106th meetings adopted its first resolution on the R2P (Responsibility to Protect) since the 2005 World Summit. Although the adoption of the resolution by consensus has been praised by UN Secretary-General (UNSG) Ban Ki-moon as ‘most significant’, the resolution and preceding discussions with in the GA on the subject shows that the concept of R2P has not as yet evolved into a full-blown legal norm under international law.
Solomon A. Dersso, senior researcher, APSTA programme, ISS Addis Ababa
The sixty-third UN General Assembly (GA) meeting at its 105th and
106th meetings adopted its first resolution on the R2P (Responsibility
to Protect) since the 2005 World Summit. Although the adoption of the
resolution by consensus has been praised by UN Secretary-General (UNSG)
Ban Ki-moon as ‘most significant’, the resolution and preceding
discussions with in the GA on the subject shows that the concept of R2P
has not as yet evolved into a full-blown legal norm under
international law.
Although within the framework of the African Union (AU) R2P is
established as a treaty-based legal norm under Article 4(h) of the
Constitutive Act of the AU, at the global level it emerged only at the
2005 World Summit at which the Heads of State and Government for the
first time affirmed R2P as principle at UN level. The work of the
International Commission on Intervention and Sovereignty entitled ‘The
Responsibility to Protect’ paved the way and set the agenda for
consideration of R2P at the global level.
At the 2005 World Summit, leaders of the states of the United
Nations enunciated for the first time the responsibility to protect
setting the framework for the elaboration and evolution of the
principle into a norm of international law. As formulated in paragraphs
138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome, the principle entails primarily
that ‘each individual state has the responsibility to protect its
populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes
against humanity.’ This responsibility involves the prevention of these
four specified crimes and violations, including their incitement,
through appropriate and necessary means. It further provided secondarily that
the international community bears the responsibility, within the
framework of the UN, first to help to protect populations through
appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, and
second, when ‘national authorities are manifestly failing to protect
their population’ against these four crimes and should peaceful means
be inadequate, to take collective action through the UN Security
Council including under Chapter VII of the UN Charter on a case by case
basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations.
In 2006, in paragraph 4 of resolution 1674 on the protection of
civilians in armed conflict, the UN Security Council (UNSC) reaffirmed
paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome without
elaborating its content and reach. When adopting resolution 1706 on
Darfur, the UNSC recalled in paragraph 2 of the preamble to the
resolution its earlier reaffirmation of the R2P as articulated in 2005.
Four years after the 2005 World Summit, UNSC elaborated the
content and reach of R2P in his report on the implementation of R2P
submitted to the GA in January 2009 for further consideration as
envisaged in the 2005 World Summit Outcome. In this report, Ban Ki-Moon
proposed a three-pillar approach for the operationalizaiton of the
R2P, namely the protection responsibilities of the state, international
assistance and capacity building including early warning and finally
‘timely and decisive response’.
The discussions made since 2005 helped in terms of the evolution
and eleboration of the R2P as a legal norm of international law. There
is consensus that the application of the R2P is limited to the four
crimes and violations defined in the 2005 World Summit. The reiteration
of the principle by the GA and its reaffirmation by the UNSC has
enhanced its legal nature. The report of the UNSC helped to further
elaborate its content and reach.
The GA held an extensive debate on the R2P on the basis of the
UNSC report. The debate revealed that despite consensus on the R2P as
articulated in the 2005 World Summit Outcome, there is lack of
agreement among members of the international community as to some
aspects of the principle particularly in terms of its application and
its reach. The report on the debate revealed that many states expressed
their support for the tenets of the first two pillars putting emphasis
on the preventive dimensions of the principle. States are however
divided on the third pillar, many non-western states expressing anxiety
on the structural flaws of the international order that would make it
impossible for it to be applied as intended and even-handedly. This is
not however unexpected and it is difficult to imagine that it will be
resolved as long as the global collective security system anchored on
the UNSC is perceived to be flawed.
The result of the lack of consensus on some, admittedly important,
aspect of the principle has been the decision of the GA on 14
September 2009 to continue consideration of the R2P.
Despite some progress made towards establishing the R2P as a
legally binding norm of international law, clearly the process to this
end is far from completed.
