The soft-law doctrines of humanitarian intervention and Responsibility to Protect (R2P) emerged decades ago as a response to the inaction of the international community, including the United Nations Organization, regarding the atrocities committed during the democide in Cambodia, the genocide in Rwanda and other crises. Thanks to modern communications, television and the internet, public awareness of these crimes grew, resulting in an urgent sense of ethical malaise. How could the world allow such crimes to occur without taking vigorous corrective measures? As political and academic debates proliferated, an increasing will to use international force, including military force, to resolve these conflicts emerged.
Today, in the year 2025 humanity continues to be challenged by conflicts and atrocities, and the United Nations has proven incapable to act promptly and effectively, most scandalously regarding the ethnic cleansing In Palestine, the genocide in Gaza, the expansion of the violence into Lebanon and Syria, the targeted assassinations, the terror attacks with electronic devices and pagers, the cancellation of UNWRA by Israel and other gross violations of human rights. Diplomatic efforts to correct this rebellion against international law and morals failed at the Security Council because of the repeated use of the veto power by the United States, and because of the complicity of the US, UK and EU in providing military, political, economic, propagandistic support to the genocidal State. Many observers acknowledge that the United Nations is at a critical moment, its authority and credibility having been seriously undermined. Is the United Nations still relevant? If there ever was a case for humanitarian intervention and R2P, this is it.
The principle underlying R2P is noble and few people would disagree with it. R2P is in the spirit of the UN Charter and has the potential to be constructive, provided that it is not hijacked or weaponized for geopolitical purposes. Alas, experience shows that R2P has not been invoked when necessary; instead, the good principle has been derailed by certain governments, sequestered away from humanitarian assistance, and transformed into a weapon to impose “regime change” in certain targeted states. It is worth recalling the origins of R2P. The renowned Australian politician and academic Gareth Evans, the driving force behind R2P, wrote that the mandate envisaged the use of force only as a last resort: “if interventions are genuinely motivated by humanitarian concerns as the primary goal…then their implementation implies solidarity across borders,” which “cannot begin and end with military intervention. It must also find expression at the pre-crisis point and be continued after the immediate crisis is over.”
The initial impulse was humanitarian, its focus on prevention of genocide, crimes against humanity and other gross violations of human rights. The methodology included the formulation of policies in a joint venture of international solidarity. Indeed, timely action is necessary to resolve grievances and render meaningful assistance to the victims of violations of human rights. As para. 138 of GA Resolution 60/1 of 24 October 2005 states: “Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. We accept that responsibility and will act in accordance with it. The international community should, as appropriate, encourage and help States to exercise this responsibility and support the United Nations in establishing an early warning capability.”
R2P entails supporting UN action in specific situations, ensuring a security architecture anchored on the UN Charter. It bears repeating that R2P was not intended to give green light to states to intervene militarily in other States or to topple governments under the pretext of assisting a suffering population or saving people from gross violations of human rights. Yet, some powerful States still want to see R2P as carte blanche to intervene wherever they want and achieve “regime change” that will serve their geopolitical interests.
This is a destabilizing mindset, because the responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security is and remains with the United Nations. According to international law principles, the jus cogens prohibition of the use of force contained in article 2(4) of the UN Charter cannot be lifted by a simple GA resolution, which is “soft law”. 60/1 enunciates an important principle, but it does not derogate from the hard law prohibition of the use of force without UN approval.
If force is employed by a State without the previous consent of the Security Council, this should have consequences for the violator. Otherwise, the credibility of the system suffers. Indeed, a culture of impunity is an affront to the authority of the United Nations, and the Security Council may in some cases be rendered irrelevant by such use of force, compounded by the abuse of the veto power by a member of the P5. In such cases, as in Gaza, the General Assembly should adopt a “Uniting for Peace” Resolution and assume its responsibility to exercise jurisdiction over the crisis.
It is a disgrace that the chorus of States and scores of ngo’s that demanded “humanitarian intervention” in Yugoslavia in 1999, who supported the use of force in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, have remained silent when it came to the ongoing genocide perpetrated by Israel on the Palestinians, and not only since October 2023, but already since the piecemeal ethnic cleansing of Palestinians after the 1947/48 Nakba.
“Humanitarian intervention” in Yugoslavia and Iraq
In no case can R2P – or the prior doctrine of “humanitarian intervention” — justify one or more countries using force against another state without UN approval. The 1999 bombardment of Yugoslavia by NATO forces lacked legality. Yet, the general perception disseminated by the media narrative tries to convince us that the bombardment was somehow “legal”, and if not legal, at least it was just and “legitimate”. Appeals to the obsolete “just war theory” proliferated in political and academic discourse. Wasn’t NATO engaged in saving lives, in protecting the Albanians of Kosovo from ethnic cleansing by the Serbs? Doubtless the Kosovo crisis could have been settled peacefully through negotiation in conformity with article 2(3) of the Charter and supported by UN agencies without having recourse to the unilateral use of force. However, the war against the former Yugoslavia was speciously justified, and no one was held accountable. Even the International Court of Justice did not seriously address any of Yugoslavia’s well-founded cases submitted to the Court, nor did the ICJ issue any provisional measures. This was a critical moment in the history of the United Nations, a low point, when it appeared that NATO had usurped the functions of the Security Council. The UN was on its way to becoming irrelevant, having lost much of its authority and credibility.
Another major revolt against the UN Charter occurred in 2003, when the “coalition of the willing” invaded Iraq under totally bogus premises, not only claiming that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction but also camouflaging the invasion as a sort of humanitarian intervention. At least Secretary General Kofi Annan had the courage to call it an “illegal” war, for which he suffered serious mobbing from the US and UK, as I learned from colleagues at the UN.
Properly understood and applied, R2P is compatible with the UN Charter and in conformity with the purposes and principles of the UN, as enunciated in articles 1 and 2 of the Charter. Of course, each State is responsible for the welfare of all persons living under its jurisdiction and should promote their rights without ethnic, religious or linguistic discrimination. Of course, there is a legitimate interest of the international community to advance the human rights of all members of the human family and to prevent gross violations of human rights. This kind of international solidarity is reflected inter alia in the 1948 Genocide Convention, which imposes an erga omnes obligation on all States parties to prevent genocide. We see it in countless GA Resolutions, including 2625, 3314, 60/1.
The problem is not in the definition, but in the implementation of R2P – when it is invoked outside the UN, when it is implemented in an arbitrary, selective manner, it loses legitimacy. Double standards invariably corrupt law and civilization.
Côte d’Ivoire and Libya
Let us look at the application of R2P in Côte d’Ivoire and Libya in 2011. In retrospect, neither crisis justified military intervention, both could have been solved by negotiation. Advisory services and humanitarian assistance were urgently needed, yet powerful countries preferred to trigger the R2P process. Objectively seen, the threshold of violence and human rights violations was clearly below what we know today in Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, Yemen, Congo, Central African Republic and many other countries where oppression and civil strife surpass those prevalent in Côte d’Ivoire and Libya in 2011. The difference is that powerful Western powers had geopolitical and economic interests at stake.
Colonialism is one of the root causes of current strife in the Congo, Rwanda and many African States. Colonialism led to debt, underdevelopment, and poverty. In Côte d’Ivoire the division of ethnic communities by artificial colonial borders led to instability and factional divisions. In 2010, when the losing incumbent, President Laurent Gbagbo, refused to hand over power to his opponent, Alassane Ouattara, a bloody conflict broke out that drew the attention of the United Nations. In response to the violence, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) as well as the African Union (AU), undertook diplomatic efforts to convince Gbagbo to cede power. When Gbagbo rejected his removal, the Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon sent a letter to the Security Council proposing “an increase in the overall authorized strength of military personnel…” The Security Council adopted Resolution 1968 on 16 February 2011. These steps were perceived as within the scope of R2P, aimed at peacekeeping and consistent with non-coercive forms of intervention under the third pillar.
On 11 March 2011, Ouattara’s forces advanced towards Gbagbo-controlled territories. ECOWAS and the AU appealed to the United Nations, requesting the construction of a security cordon to protect civilians, destruction of military weapons, an arms embargo, sanctions to be placed on Gbagbo, referral to the International Criminal Court, and an authorization of the legitimate use of force to assert their demands that Gbagbo step down. Thereupon the Security Council adopted Resolution 1975, which “authorized French and UN forces ‘to prevent the use of heavy weapons against the civilian population’ in Côte d’Ivoire,” ultimately setting “the stage for the combined forces to take out the heavy weapons surrounding the presidential residence, which in turn enabled pro-Ouattara troops to arrest Gbagbo and hundreds of his supporters.” Some states voiced reservations, namely that “United Nations peacekeeping operations should strictly abide by the principle of neutrality,” and should not “be made instruments of regime change.” The fears that states possessed when Resolution 1975 was passed are consistent with those voiced at the General Assembly debate of 2009, which are elaborated on and explained in my 2012 report to the General Assembly and 2018 report to the UN Human Rights Council.
It should be noted that the R2P intervention in Côte d’Ivoire was hardly successful. Ultimately Laurent Gbagbo was acquitted by the ICC. The root causes of the conflict were not solved, the medicine was, in fact, worse than the disease. Another “collateral damage” of this misuse of R2P was the consequent loss of credibility by the United Nations as a neutral organization, and the increased hostility against France that has spread through many African states including Chad, Mali and Burkina Faso. The French misuse of R2P in Côte d’Ivoire also led nations like Russia and China to feel confirmed in their suspicions of R2P.
Much has been written about the gross abuse of R2P in Libya in 2011. Whoever knows the history of Security Council Resolution 1973 can appreciate the damage it did to the positive potential of R2P. Personally, I made a learning experience at the General Assembly in October 2013, when I presented my annual report formulating concrete reforms to the United Nations system and a gradual phasing out of the veto power. In the interactive dialogue after the presentation of my report, the Russian Ambassador took me to task and related to the assembled delegates how the US, UK and France had abused the trust of Russia and China when proposing SC Resolution 1973 providing for humanitarian assistance to the Libyan people. Admittedly, Russia and China did not veto the resolution but abstained and allowed it to be adopted. Little did they know that it would be used for regime change, including the assassination of Libya’s Head of State Muammar Ghadaffy. The Russians and Chinese felt that their Western colleagues in the Security Council had taken them for a ride: “This will not happen again”. Henceforth, the Russians and Chinese would refuse to endorse US, UK or French proposals based on R2P considerations. As the Russian Ambassador concluded, the veto power can be used to prevent greater evil, to prevent an aggravation of armed conflict, chaos and slaughter. He vindicated the potential contribution to world peace through the exercise of the veto power.
Notwithstanding the absence of recent Security Council Resolutions authorizing the use of force based on R2P, lethal force, particularly aerial bombardments with significant civilian casualties, has continued unabated, e.g. the US, France, and Israel have all employed illegal force against Syria since 2011.
Nonetheless, R2P theorists, including myself, reaffirm “the legitimacy of viewing the commission of atrocity crimes as a matter of international concern – rather than a matter of domestic jurisdiction – and of acting collectively to address it” as well as “raising the political costs of a failure to respond,” and the reality that R2P encompasses more than military intervention when addressing atrocity crimes.
Conclusion
R2P is not dead, although it has been seriously wounded. On the positive side we note that gradually people have understood that R2P cannot derogate from Art. 2(4) of the Charter, which is hard law. An international consensus has emerged that R2P can be helpful if it is applied objectively, without double standards, and in the context of the UN Charter. On the negative side we observe that even though R2P as a doctrine has garnered less attention in the recent past, some states are still intervening militarily in other States without UN approval or even bothering to invoke R2P or “humanitarian intervention” as possible justification. They just do it. Hitherto in total impunity.
That is why, in the glossary of my book Building a Just World Order, I warned about the abuse of R2P, describing the neo-liberal view of R2P as follows: “Responsibility to Protect, an Orwellian scam to circumvent the UN Charter, in particular to legitimize military intervention without Security Council approval, in contravention of article 2(4) of the Charter. R2P is contained in paragraphs 138 and 139 of UN General Assembly Resolution 60/1. It is advocated by States that have a geopolitical interest in interfering in the internal affairs of other States and want to place a mantel of ‘legitimacy’ over it.” This concern is elucidated in the book and in two of my reports to the General Assembly and UN Human Rights Council.
What many politicians – and academics – have not yet come to download onto their brains is the fact that applying international law selectively, corrupting the clear language of SC and GA resolutions are corrosive of international law and international institutions. Such acts have consequences, namely a loss of authority and credibility by the United Nations and its agencies, and more generally a growing cynicism about the validity of international norms and the universality of human rights.
Not without reason two thousand years ago the Roman philosopher Ovidius posed the question in his Sixth Satire, quis custodiet Ipsos custodies (verses 347-48). Who guards over the guardians? What can the citizen do when the guardians betray their mandates? When the UN SC adopts resolutions like 1973 and 1975 paving the way for “regime change” in the service of certain powerful countries.
Civilization is not mathematics; it is an act of faith. It depends on the trust that we place on our institutions of governance, on our laws, on our system of values. Personally, I want to believe in civilization, in the United Nations, in human rights, in R2P. But we must all be alert and demand transparency and accountability. Confidence-building after the fall is possible and worth trying, but it is not always easy.
It is still possible to recommit to the purposes and principles of the United Nations, to the spirituality of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to the values of Eleanor Roosevelt, René Cassin, Charles Malik and P.C. Chang.
Alfred de Zayas is a professor of international law at the Geneva School of Diplomacy, former UN Independent Expert on International Order (2012-18), former Secretary of the UN Human Rights Committee and Chief of the Petitions Department. He is also the Author of 12 books including Building a Just World Order and The Human Rights Industry and a member of the Geneva International Peace Research Institute.
