BANGLADESH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES

OVERCOMING THE RWANDA FAILURE: THE IMPACT OF R2P ON THE PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS

Author: Saima Ahmed

DOI Link: https://www.doi.org/10.566888/BIISSj2014v35n1a5

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses two norms that the United Nations led humanitarian interventions have been practicing since the 1990s: the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the Protection of Civilians. Both are very important agenda setters for future humanitarian interventions. The objective of this paper is to provide critical insights about how these two norms are applied on a limited scale during humanitarian interventions. The paper begins by reflecting on the failures of the United Nations in stopping and providing timely response during the genocide in Rwanda in 1993. It is argued that the causes of the Rwanda failure are the United Nations (UN), the United States (US), and the international community’s inaction and unwillingness to spend resources to stop or prevent violent conflicts and/or gross violations of human rights in an impoverished region like Africa. These regions are of little value and pose little threat to the United States and other great powers. A human catastrophe in Rwanda or any other economically poor countries of the world seems distant to them, and would require long term engagement that the great powers think as would be a burden on them. They judge international prohibitions and take pivotal decisions of humanitarian interventions on a case by case basis when they think it is appropriate and necessary. Most often the great powers and/or the permanent members of the Security Council reflect their domestic decision makers’ positions instead of the interests of justice, and often only uphold their national interests and other criteria. The paper then discusses the central challenges to operationalise the doctrine of Protection of Civilians – the very reason the concept of R2P was coined. Here the paper argues that the principle of R2P suffers from several important limitations when it aims at implementing the doctrine of Protection of Civilians. In the final section, the 2001 report on R2P of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), which was independently launched by the Canadian government, and the Outcome Document of the 2005 World Summit is analysed. It is suggested in the paper that many important recommendations of the ICISS were sidelined in the Outcome Document and this imposed limitations on the effectiveness of R2P’s implementation. It is also argued that the primary causes of Rwanda failure were not reflected in these initiatives.