“Two decades have shown that plans to protect people from massacres are so rife with practical and political shortcomings that we might be better off discarding the ideal.”
“The best-known plan is ‘The Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) doctrine. It warns governments slaughtering their citizens that they will be stopped, with military might if essential, and that sovereignty will no longer provide them with cover to act with impunity.”
“At its 2005 World Summit, the United Nations endorsed R2P. Nearly 200 states signed on. Many scholars, activists and NGOs are guided by the ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine. They point to the 2005 UN endorsement as evidence that it has become a norm that is global and enforceable.”
“The lack of implementation mechanisms in human-rights agreements is scarcely an oversight. States simply will not sign them if they include specific and enforceable obligations.”
“After the Libya debacle, Brazil presented to the UN a proposed amendment to R2P, ‘Responsibility While Protecting’, which reflects the fears of smaller states that more powerful ones will invoke humanitarian ideals as a pretext to topple governments that they don’t like.”