Paris - The Responsibility To Protect and The Structural Problems of Preventive Humanitarian Intervention

International Peacekeeping
ISSN: 1353-3312 (Print) 1743-906X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/finp20
The ‘Responsibility to Protect’ and the Structural

Problems of Preventive Humanitarian Intervention
Roland Paris
To cite this article: Roland Paris (2014) The ‘Responsibility to Protect’ and the Structural Problems
of Preventive Humanitarian Intervention, International Peacekeeping, 21:5, 569-603, DOI:
10.1080/13533312.2014.963322
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The ‘Responsibility to Protect’ and the Structural
Problems of Preventive Humanitarian Intervention
ROLAND PARIS
While the normative and legal aspects of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine have
been explored in great detail, scholars have largely overlooked the more practical question
of whether and how international military action can avert mass atrocities. To shed light
on this question, this article investigates the ‘strategic logic’ of preventive humanitarian
intervention, or the assumed link between external military action and the desired
outcome of preventing or stopping mass killing. It contends that there are five fundamental
and seemingly irremediable tensions in this logic, all of which cast doubt on the feasibility
of preventive humanitarian intervention and on the long-term prospects of R2P.
The multinational military operation in Libya in 2011 was the first coercive inter-
vention to be justified under the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine. The
core tenet of R2P, unanimously endorsed by members of the United Nations
(UN) in 2005, is that every state has a responsibility to protect its inhabitants
from mass atrocities and that this responsibility may fall to the broader inter-
national community ‘should peaceful means be inadequate and national auth-
orities manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes,
ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity’.1 Although the doctrine prioritizes
peaceful over coercive methods, it leaves open the possibility of preventive huma-
nitarian intervention, or military force by outside parties to avert mass atrocities,
should all other methods fail.2 UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which
authorized coercive intervention in Libya, invoked the language of R2P when it
called on UN members to use ‘all necessary measures . . . to protect civilians
and civilian populated areas under threat of attack’ in Libya.3
To some observers, including two of R2P’s intellectual architects, Gareth
Evans and Ramesh Thakur, the Libya operation represented a ‘coming of age’
for the doctrine and its emergence as a ‘powerful new galvanizing norm’ in inter-
national affairs.4 In some ways, they were right: from 2001, when the Inter-
national Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) introduced
the R2P concept in its report,5 until 2011, when the Security Council approved
Resolution 1973 with no dissenting votes,6 the doctrine had gained widespread
support. Early opposition to R2P, including suspicions that it might be a smokesc-
reen for imperial intervention, seemed to have given way to broad international
endorsement.7
However, the coercive instrument at the core of the doctrine – preventive
humanitarian intervention – has been poorly understood. Most academic
International Peacekeeping, Vol.21, No.5, 2014, pp.569–603

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13533312.2014.963322 # 2014 Taylor & Francis
570 INTERNA TIONAL P EACEKEEPING
writing on the subject has focused on normative and legal questions, such as
whether and under what circumstances intervention might be justified, rather
than on the practical challenges of conducting such operations.8 Few scholars
have investigated the strategic logic of this type of mission, or the assumed
relationship between the interveners’ actions and the desired outcomes. How,
exactly, was the use of military force expected to prevent mass atrocities and to
uphold the principles of R2P? This question has not been answered in depth;
indeed, it has rarely been posed.
The Libya operation, therefore, represented something of an experiment – a
partially blind one, given how little was known about the challenges of this par-
ticular type of intervention. As it turned out, the results were not encouraging for
the future of R2P. I shall argue in this article that the operation and its aftermath
exposed deep tensions in the strategic logic of preventive humanitarian interven-
tion, and thus in the heart of R2P. I call these tensions ‘structural problems’
because they appear to be integral to this type of military operation. There are
five: the mixed motives problem; the counterfactual problem; the conspicuous
harm problem; the end-state problem; and the inconsistency problem.
As we shall see, each of these problems greatly complicates the task of preven-
tive humanitarian intervention, and together they give rise to a seemingly unwin-
nable dilemma for the R2P doctrine: On the one hand, if there is no intervention
in the face of looming mass atrocities, R2P is likely to be criticized as phony or
hollow. On the other hand, when a preventive operation is launched, even if it
achieves its initial goal of averting an atrocity, both the intervention and R2P
are still likely to be judged harshly, for reasons that will be explained below.
This paradox, I argue, is unavoidable: it arises from the structural problems at
the core of the doctrine and is therefore likely to reappear in future operations
of this type.
This is not to suggest that R2P is fated to fail – at least, not entirely. For one
thing, there is more to the doctrine than its coercive elements, including a range of
diplomatic and other non-military methods of promoting human protection.
Moreover, the idea that countries have a duty to safeguard their own populations
from extreme harm and that external intervention for humanitarian purposes
may sometimes be warranted continues to enjoy widespread support in inter-
national affairs, even in the aftermath of the Libya controversy. What ultimately
matters, however, is how these ideas are translated into practice. This article con-
tends that the structural problems of preventive humanitarian intervention not
only render this type of operation inherently tricky, but that they also pose an
insurmountable obstacle to the full implementation of R2P. Although isolated
humanitarian interventions may take place in the future, the R2P doctrine will
almost certainly remain weak and contested, rather than becoming either a ‘gal-
vanizing norm’9 or ‘reliable tool’,10 as some of its supporters have hoped.
There are good reasons to investigate the strategic logic of preventive huma-
nitarian intervention and R2P at this time. In the wake of the Libya experiment,
both the study and practice of R2P have arrived ‘at a crossroads’.11 Humanitarian
emergencies in Syria and elsewhere have prompted new calls for international
intervention, but the controversies of the Libya mission continue to loom large
THE ‘RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT’ 571
over such discussions. Meanwhile, the UN Secretary-General has declared for the
first time that ‘human protection is a defining principle’ of the world body,12 and
US President Barack Obama has announced that ‘the prevention of mass atroci-
ties and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibil-
ity of the United States’.13 Given that we still know relatively little about the
inherent challenges of using coercive force for such purposes, a closer analysis
of the assumptions of R2P and preventive humanitarian intervention is not just
warranted – it is a necessity.
The rest of this article is divided into four sections. First, I describe the struc-
tural problems of this type of intervention. Second, I demonstrate how these pro-
blems became manifest in the Libya operation and its aftermath. Third, I examine
four sets of proposals to improve this form of intervention and to strengthen R2P,
showing how each fails to address the structural problems which seem to be inte-
gral to this kind of military action. Finally, I consider the implications of these
problems for the future prospects of R2P.
The Structural Problems of Preventive Humanitarian Intervention

In 1999, Adam Roberts wrote: ‘In the long history of legal debates about huma-
nitarian intervention, there has been a consistent failure to address directly the
question of the methods used in such interventions.’14 More than a decade
later, Kurt Mills and Cian O’Driscoll again reviewed the literature on humanitar-
ian intervention and arrived at a similar conclusion.15 Indeed, although research
on this subject has flourished over the past two decades, most of this scholarship
has focused on ethical and legal questions, such as whether and under what cir-
cumstances it is permissible to use armed force for humanitarian ends,16 while
paying less attention to the challenges and pitfalls of conducting such
operations.17
The same holds true for the literature on R2P, which has traced the emergence
of the doctrine since 2001 and explored R2P’s normative and legal aspects, but
has largely overlooked the question of how coercive force may be used to avert
mass atrocities.18 Nor, it seems, is this lacuna limited to the academic literature.
One 2006 study examined the state of military planning in the UN, NATO and
selected Western governments and found ‘little well-developed or well-known
doctrine addressing operations authorized to use force to protect civilians
under imminent threat either in the context of a peace support operation or as
a stand-alone mission’.19 As we shall see below, some governments have recently
begun to explore the challenges of what they call ‘mass atrocity response oper-
ations’, but they still have much work to do. Overall, the ‘paucity of thinking
about the coercive tools’ of R2P, writes Jennifer Welsh, means that scholars
and practitioners alike have ‘only begun to understand how force can and
should be used to protect civilians’.20
Some may explain this lacuna by arguing that R2P encompasses more than
just coercive intervention, which is true. In his 2009 report on ‘Implementing
the Responsibility to Protect’, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon explained
that R2P rests on three ‘pillars’.21 The first pillar is the responsibility of every
state to protect its own population from ‘genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing
and crimes against humanity, and from their incitement’.22 Under this pillar, the
secretary-general urged countries to take steps to promote human protection
within their own borders, such as adopting human rights monitoring mechan-
isms. The second pillar encompasses different forms of international assistance –
technical, financial and military – to help countries meet these obligations.23 This
pillar may also include international diplomatic efforts to avert a looming crisis,
such as those undertaken in early 2008 to avoid further bloodshed after a dis-
puted election in Kenya.24 Only the third pillar of R2P involves coercive measures
by outsiders, ranging from economic sanctions to direct military action. Never-
theless, this pillar looms over the others: armed intervention is the last-resort
emergency option to prevent mass atrocities if all non-military measures fail. In
this light, the dearth of strategic thinking about the coercive tools of R2P is
even more striking. At the core of the doctrine is a policy instrument of critical
significance whose practical applications and operational assumptions are still
poorly understood.
Missing, in particular, has been careful analysis of the strategic logic of preven-
tive humanitarian intervention, or the assumed relationship between interveners’
actions and the desired outcome: averting mass atrocities. Recent discussions
about how to implement R2P’s third pillar have, instead, focused on factors
that are external to the R2P concept itself. For example, some scholars and
policy practitioners have highlighted the need for greater ‘political will’ among
leading countries to take decisive action to avert mass killings.25 Others have
called for improved criteria and processes to authorize the use of armed force
for R2P purposes,26 or for the development of greater ‘institutional capacity’
within international and regional organizations and national governments for
responding to such emergencies.27 While these factors may be important, they
overlook the possibility that the greatest obstacle to the full implementation of
R2P may be the problematic strategic logic of preventive humanitarian interven-
tion at the heart of the doctrine. Indeed, in what follows, I describe five fundamen-
tal tensions in the strategic logic of this type of operation. Examining these
structural problems is critical to understanding why such operations are full of
pitfalls, and why R2P is unlikely ever to be fully implemented.
The Mixed Motives Problem

The legitimizing rationale for preventive humanitarian intervention is its altruistic
purpose: to prevent mass atrocities. In the absence of altruism, it is simply ‘war’.
Although the difference between humanitarian intervention and war is not widely
recognized in international law – indeed, there is still no definitive legal standard
for ‘humanitarian intervention’28 – the distinction remains politically important:
an operation that is perceived to be defending civilians under threat will tend to
elicit a very different response than one that is seen as a self-interested war. As
Michael Barnett puts it, humanitarian action is ‘sanctified’ by its altruistic aims.29
In practice, however, it is virtually impossible to imagine a military interven-
tion that is motivated solely by humanitarian considerations. Decisions to use
armed force almost always involve a mix of motives, including self-interest. Two
recent studies examining the record of international military operations since the
end of the cold war, for example, failed to find a single case that was wholly
altruistic.30 Even operations described as humanitarian were ‘blurred with self-
interested power pursuits’31 and shaped by ‘geo-strategic interests’.32 This is
not to say that humanitarian motives are mere pretensions, or that states are
driven solely by considerations of their own ‘security, power and self-interest’.33
Rather, as Martin Binder observes, historical patterns of intervention corroborate
neither exclusively self-interested nor exclusively norm-based explanations of
foreign policy behavior.34 These patterns point, instead, to an ‘interplay’ of
material self-interests and humanitarian norms in intervention decisions.35
A measure of self-interest in preventive humanitarian intervention thus seems
unavoidable, but it might also be desirable and even indispensable, for two
reasons. First, it may be necessary as a means to ensure governmental account-
ability within the intervening states. Because military action is costly and danger-
ous, the leaders of these states have both a right and an obligation ‘to consider the
interest of their own people, even when they are acting to help other people’36 and
it may not be in the interests of a prospective intervening state’s population to
deploy military forces in every case of imminent or actual mass atrocities in the
world. Second, unless humanitarian operations are at least partly rooted in self-
interest, intervening states may lack the political commitment and resolve to com-
plete the humanitarian tasks they undertake, especially if these involve combat.
As Thomas Weiss points out: ‘If only altruism without significant interests had
to be present, there would rarely be sufficient motivation to get involved in the
first place or to stay the course.’37 When there are high risks and costs involved,
‘domestic political support is essential’.38
The observation that effective military action presupposes a measure of self-
interest on the part of the interveners is important because it suggests that self-
interest is implicitly built into the strategic logic of R2P. This goes beyond the
earlier observation that prospective interveners always consider their own inter-
ests and that purely altruistic intervention is unrealistic to expect.39 Proponents of
cosmopolitan justice might counter by arguing that full implementation of R2P
involves convincing states to acknowledge their collective responsibility or
‘duty of care’ to protect populations from mass atrocities and to set aside
‘state-centred motivations’ that might stand in the way of such action.40
However, if a measure of self-interest is not only inevitable but required to
sustain a potentially costly and dangerous military intervention, then ‘state-
centred motivations’ among prospective interveners play a more complicated
role.
This poses a problem for R2P. How can such operations preserve their credi-
bility and legitimacy as altruistic missions if they also reflect the self-interests of
the interveners? Some scholars respond to this question by arguing that an oper-
ation can be legitimately considered ‘humanitarian’ if it pursues humanitarian
objectives, regardless of the interveners’ motives.41 Others, recognizing that
pure objectives are just as unlikely as pure motives, contend that the relevant
test should be whether the ‘primary’ purpose of military action is to protected
42
populations at risk, and still others argue that interventions may be genuinely
humanitarian as long as they ‘do not undermine a positive humanitarian
outcome’.43
While these debates are interesting, they are emblematic of the broader litera-
ture on R2P and humanitarian intervention: they investigate the mixed motives
problem as a normative, legal and procedural puzzle, but largely overlook the
impact of mixed motives on the feasibility of preventive humanitarian interven-
tion. If self-interest is an unavoidable (and, to some extent, desirable and necess-
ary) feature of such operations, and if the legitimacy of such missions rests on
their perceived altruism, we should expect these operations to be especially
prone to delegitimization. This has serious implications for interveners: a huma-
nitarian mission that comes to be regarded as a self-interested invasion is more
likely to generate greater political opposition, and even armed resistance. This
may also lead to a backlash against R2P, particularly if the doctrine is viewed
as a ‘cover’ for imperialism, pre-emptive war, or other ulterior motives. None
of these outcomes is inevitable, but the mixed motives problem makes humanitar-
ian interventions particularly vulnerable to legitimacy crises of this kind.
Although clearer standards and procedures for authorizing the use of coercive
force on humanitarian grounds might help to mitigate this problem at the
margins, they cannot resolve the fundamental tension within the strategic logic
of this type of operation: namely, the simultaneous necessity and preclusion of
self-interest.
The Counterfactual Problem

The second structural problem is the intrinsic difficulty of demonstrating that a
preventive humanitarian intervention, once deployed, has actually succeeded.
By definition, when such an operation works, something has not happened: a
mass atrocity. The principal evidence of success, in other words, is a non-event.
Consequently, in order to demonstrate that an intervention has been effective,
interveners must resort to ‘counterfactual’ reasoning about what might have hap-
pened if not for the intervention. This is a particularly difficult and indeterminate
form of argumentation; decades of scholarly debate have ‘cast doubt on the ade-
quacy of any simple analysis of singular causation in terms of counterfactuals’.44
This is not to dismiss counterfactual analysis as fruitless, but rather, to point out
that counterfactuals can never be proven – or disproven – and that even scholars
who employ such tools acknowledge their great limitations.45
These methodological problems are even more pronounced in the case of mass
atrocities because they are infrequent, complex events. Indeed, previous scholar-
ship on humanitarian intervention has demonstrated the limits and pitfalls of
counterfactual analysis in this area. Taylor Seybolt, for example, uses mortality
rates to estimate the number of lives that might have been saved by specific
past interventions.46 However, his mortality data measure normal death-rates
over time, rather than focusing on atypical spasms of violence, and therefore
cannot provide a basis for predicting or accounting for sudden mass atrocities.
As a result, Seybolt’s estimate of the lives potentially saved by intervention
47
consequently remains largely a matter of guesswork. We should also treat with
scepticism J.L. Holzgrefe’s assertion that researchers ‘can crudely measure how a
humanitarian intervention will affect human well-being by comparing the
number of people who actually died in a similar intervention in the past with
the number of people who would have died had that intervention not occurred’.48
The crucial term in this passage is ‘crudely’. General patterns may be discernible,
but point predictions of the number of lives saved by a particular intervention
remain profoundly hypothetical, due in part to the difficulty in finding genuinely
comparable cases and controlling for other conditions. No one can know if a mass
atrocity (or, for that matter, a worsening or improvement in levels of violence)
would have occurred in the absence of an intervention.
This analytical problem is not limited to the study of preventive humanitarian
intervention. It is also a ‘familiar and vexing’ methodological challenge for stu-
dents of military deterrence, who are similarly interested in identifying and deter-
mining the causes of ‘non-events’.49 Nonetheless, compared to most other types
of military operations – including those that seek to defeat an opposing force,
to gain control over a strategic location or to win territory, to capture or kill
adversaries, or to counter an insurgency – evidence of success in preventive
humanitarian intervention is especially intangible, making it very difficult to
demonstrate the benefits of such operations. Further, if this type of argument is
difficult for specialists in counterfactual analysis, political leaders face an even
greater challenge in convincing sceptical publics that a given event would have
happened, if not for their timely action.
The Conspicuous Harm Problem

While the benefits of a humanitarian intervention must be imagined, its costs are
patently clear. This is the essence of the conspicuous harm problem. No matter
how carefully coercive operations may be planned and conducted, they almost
always cause collateral damage and accidental deaths – they break things and
kill innocent people – which is bound to have a more immediate impact on
public debates than a conjectured counterfactual scenario.50 Cognitive psycholo-
gists have found that people tend to have stronger emotional reactions towards
‘what is’ conditions than towards hypothetical ‘what if’ possibilities, because
information about present circumstances is more ‘rich and vivid’.51 Perceptions
of the costs and benefits of preventive operations are thus likely to be skewed
towards the costs, even when the mission arguably accomplishes what it set out
to do: averting a mass atrocity. Put another way, there appears to be a structural
tendency for such operations to be judged more by the damage they inflict than by
the harm they avert. This may be particularly true in an era of uncensored, instan-
taneous communication of photographs, videos and first-hand accounts through
social media. Such images and reports can have immediate effects; for example,
the political reaction against conspicuous harm may cause some intervening
states to rethink their commitment to an operation while it is still underway.52
Conspicuous harm is a problem for all military missions, but it is a special
challenge for operations that base their legitimacy on the principle of
preventing harm. In the words of Alex Bellamy: ‘[F]ew things are likely to
damage the humanitarian credentials of a military operation more than the per-
ception that it is increasing the overall risk to civilians.’53 Although they are
subject to the same laws of war as other military action, in practice humanitar-
ian missions must ‘weigh harm to non-combatants particularly heavily’.54
Purely consequentialist or utilitarian logics do not apply to such missions, in
other words, because the means of achieving the intervention’s outcome must
align with the moral standards and rationale behind the operation’s deploy-
ment. Failure to abide by these requirements risks delegitimizing the mission
and also the states and international organizations that supported (or were
seen to be supporting) the intervention.55 This is why the seemingly unavoid-
able reality of conspicuous collateral damage is so problematic for this kind
of operation.
Furthermore, outside actors may be held responsible for the behaviour of
groups under their protection. Any form of external military intervention in a
civil conflict is likely to favour one party or another, and thus will tend to be
seen as biased by the local parties, even if the interveners, themselves, seek to
remain impartial.56 This tendency is even more pronounced in preventive huma-
nitarian operations because averting an atrocity normally means protecting one
group from the threat posed by another, which creates an association between
the outsiders and the protected parties. This presents a potential predicament
for the interveners, whose ability to control or police the behaviour of these
parties may be limited, but who may nevertheless be held accountable for their
actions. Moreover, if protected groups opt to retaliate against their attackers
and ‘become perpetrators’ of new atrocities themselves,57 their actions may com-
pound the conspicuous harm problem and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the
operation as a whole.
The End-State Problem

In cases where outside forces set out to secure a population under threat, they may
achieve their initial objective but then face a quandary: how to disengage or with-
draw without recreating the same threatening conditions that prompted military
action in the first place. Establishing a protected ‘safe area’, for example, may
provide immediate security for an at-risk population, but only for as long as
the interveners remain present. Removing this presence could be tantamount to
placing the endangered people back at risk, contrary to the original purpose of
the mission and the principles of R2P.
What, then, is to be done in such a situation? One option is to continue the
international operation indefinitely – in effect, providing a semi-permanent
protective presence. However, unless provisions for open-ended policing or
peace-enforcement were built into the operation’s initial mandate, this would
significantly expand the terms of the mission. An open-ended presence might
also strain the willingness of some interveners to remain committed to an oper-
ation, particularly if they expected it to be short-lived. Further, the outside
presence might come to be regarded as a form of ‘occupation’, rather than
humanitarian rescue, and generate local resistance. A second option is to elim-
inate the source of the threat itself. However, if the threat is the government of
the country (which is likely to be the case, since coercive intervention, by defi-
nition, is against the wishes of the target state), such a strategy would amount
to regime change. This would not only broaden the operation’s objectives
beyond the initial aim of atrocity prevention, but would also raise additional
questions about the motives of the interveners. A third option is to negotiate
a settlement of the crisis, including protections for the threatened group.
However, this would typically involve an ongoing presence of international
forces as guarantors of any agreement. Once again, while this longer-term poli-
cing role may be warranted, it would amount to a different mission with a
much-expanded mandate.
All told, achieving a sustainable end-state for the termination of an oper-
ation is likely to be a more ambitious and far-reaching undertaking than the
immediate task of protecting a population at direct risk of mass atrocities.
This is not to argue against longer-term operations; in spite of high-profile fail-
ures, the overall record of post-conflict peacebuilding missions in preventing
the recurrence of civil conflicts has been reasonably good.58 The point,
rather, is that that pressures for mandate expansion seem to be built into the
logic of preventive humanitarian intervention. Moreover, if interveners
respond to the end-state problem by broadening or changing their de facto
mission mandates, they are liable to be accused of performing a ‘bait and
switch’ – that is, of setting out to do one thing but actually doing something
else. In this sense, the end-state problem can interact with and exacerbate the
mixed motives problem.
Another dimension of the end-state problem concerns the indirect or
second-order effects of intervention on the political stability of the country or
surrounding region. Regardless of whether a preventive humanitarian mission
succeeds in neutralizing the threat of a looming mass atrocity, if it finishes by
destabilizing the country or its neighbours, this will contribute to the conspic-
uous harm problem, potentially casting doubt on the overall effectiveness of the
operation. When the ICISS introduced R2P in 2001, it argued that the doctrine
includes a ‘responsibility to rebuild’, meaning that interveners in R2P situations
should make ‘a genuine commitment to helping to build a durable peace, and
promoting good governance and sustainable development’.59 Others have
gone further, suggesting that there may be an international legal obligation –
a ‘jus post bellum’ – to stabilize countries after humanitarian intervention
and to ‘reconstruct’ states that have ‘attempted to exterminate their citizens’.60
Such claims remain contested.61 The version of R2P that the UN membership
adopted in 2005 made no reference to a duty or responsibility to rebuild fol-
lowing an intervention.62 Nevertheless, whether or not such an obligation
exists, these debates highlight a broader point: military interventions under-
taken for narrow purposes may have destabilizing second- and third-order
effects that cast doubt on the effectiveness of an operation, even if the initial
goal of averting a mass atrocity is met.
The Inconsistency Problem

The final problem is that of inconsistency in the international response to mass
atrocity emergencies. There will be circumstances in which civilians are gravely
threatened and outside actors cannot, or choose not, to intervene. This may
result from any number of causes.63 For example, there may be conflicting percep-
tions of the nature, degree or urgency of the threat, which could make it imposs-
ible to reach agreement on international action. Events on the ground might also
unfold more quickly than anticipated, and consequently the temporal window for
making a correct judgement about an imminent atrocity may be narrow and easy
to miss. Alternatively, prospective interveners may rule out an operation because
they believe it would conflict with their interests. As suggested earlier, a measure
of self-interest on the part of the interveners may be a necessary feature of preven-
tive humanitarian intervention – either for reasons of governmental accountabil-
ity within the intervening state, or to ensure that the interveners are committed to
completing the tasks they undertake.
Intervention may also be ruled out because it is likely to do more harm than
good. In its 2001 report, the ICISS set out a number of ‘precautionary principles’
to guide decisions on military intervention, including: ‘There must be a reason-
able chance of success in halting or averting the suffering which has justified
the intervention, with the consequences of action not likely to be worse than
the consequences of inaction.’64 This admonition was not explicitly included in
the 2005 formulation of R2P, but it is firmly established in the ‘just war’ tradition
that is the basis for R2P.65 In this respect, a faithful application of the R2P prin-
ciples may entail decisions to forgo intervention, even in the case of a looming or
ongoing mass atrocity. A measure of selectivity, based on calculations of expected
consequences, already seems to be built into the doctrine.
However, intervening to prevent mass atrocities in some cases, but not
others, creates a problem: it is very likely to produce the appearance of
‘double standards’, which can only weaken the doctrine’s credibility. Again,
such inconsistency is inevitable, not simply because other factors may interfere
with the application of R2P, but because the doctrine, itself, warns against
intervening to prevent or stop mass atrocities in certain circumstances. In
other words, the inconsistency problem arises, in part, from a tension in the
strategic logic of R2P.
Interveners could respond to this problem by altogether ruling out the use of
military force for humanitarian purposes, effectively doing away with the third
pillar of the R2P doctrine.66 This would eliminate the inconsistency, but R2P
would almost certainly be dismissed as a hollow doctrine if it did not allow for
the possibility of military action as a last resort. As Edward Luck points out,
R2P’s supporters must demonstrate that the doctrine can ‘make a difference’,
including by ‘spurring a timely and decisive response when national authorities
are manifestly failing to protect their populations across the range of crimes speci-
fied’ in the 2005 agreement on R2P.67 Proponents of R2P thus face a dilemma: On
one hand, the doctrine must be useful and must not rule out the possibility of mili-
tary action if it is to be credible. On the other hand, military action in one
emergency may also serve to highlight the absence of an equally robust inter-
national response in other crises, and create expectations for military assistance
that will go unmet in many, if not most, other cases.68
This dilemma reflects a deeper tension between the substance and symbolism
of R2P. Strictly speaking, the substantive content of R2P is contained in the res-
olution that the General Assembly adopted in 2005, the only version formally
approved by governments. As we have seen, this version includes a number of
caveats (including that R2P applies only to specific mass atrocity crimes, and
that armed coercion may only be employed as a last resort) along with other
‘just war’ limitations on the use of force. On the other hand, R2P simultaneously
symbolizes something larger than the 2005 agreement: it is the embodiment of the
pledge to ‘never again’ allow genocide to occur, a commitment born out of the
experience of the Holocaust.69 This symbolism has arguably given R2P much
of its ‘moral authority’ in international affairs.70 But here is the tension: ‘never
again’ is a categorical imperative, not subject to caveats or conditions. This
makes R2P a hybrid. It is both an unreserved moral duty to prevent mass atroci-
ties and a pragmatic framework that seeks to balance this duty with other impera-
tives and procedural considerations.
These two aspects of R2P do not sit well together. A categorical imperative
that is not consistently acted upon risks being discredited. On the other hand,
launching armed interventions in response to every case of imminent or actual
mass atrocities, regardless of the ancillary effects of such actions, would almost
certainly also discredit the doctrine, not only because it would violate the terms
of the 2005 agreement, but also because it would, almost by definition, result
in some ill-considered deployments.
These are all different aspects of the inconsistency problem. Inaction in the
face of mass atrocities stands to weaken R2P by making it seem hollow, but con-
versely, employing coercive force in the name of R2P highlights the unavoidable
inconsistency of the international response, which is just as likely to cast doubt on
the doctrine. R2P is thus caught in a confounding logical trap of its own making.
Whether prospective interveners act, or refrain from acting, they risk bringing the
doctrine into disrepute.
∗ ∗ ∗
Each of these five structural problems gives rise to dilemmas. The mixed
motives problem renders self-interest both a necessity and a liability for preven-
tive humanitarian intervention. The counterfactual problem makes it inherently
difficult to demonstrate the effectiveness of this type of intervention. The con-
spicuous harm problem draws attention to the costs of such a mission, rather
than to its benefits. The end-state problem creates pressures for mandate
expansion and highlights the costs of an intervention’s second-order effects.
The inconsistency problem makes the application of R2P seem fickle and hypo-
critical. All of the above problems arise from tensions in the strategic logic of
preventive humanitarian intervention, which is at the core of R2P. It should
come as little surprise, therefore, that they were also visible in the Libya oper-
ation and its aftermath.
The Libya Intervention of 2011 and Its Aftermath

The Libya operation provided the first major test of R2P’s most coercive policy
instrument: large-scale military intervention, against the wishes of the target
state, in order to protect civilians from the threat of mass atrocities.71 As we
shall see, it also illustrated all the structural problems of preventive humanitarian
intervention. This section begins by summarizing the Libya crisis and the inter-
national response, and then demonstrates that the main controversies and criti-
cisms of the mission were, in fact, manifestations of the structural problems
described above.
Crisis and Response

The wave of popular unrest known as the Arab Awakening originated in Tunisia
in late 2010 and quickly spread to other countries, such as Libya, where anti-gov-
ernment demonstrations began in February 2011.72 Regime security forces
responded with live ammunition, including from helicopters and warplanes,
injuring and killing ‘hundreds of people’ during the first week of unrest.73 In
the ensuing days, Libyan troops and imported mercenaries fought to regain
control over the capital, Tripoli, establishing what residents described as a
‘state of terror’ in the city, with numerous reported attacks on unarmed protes-
ters.74 Elsewhere, regime forces were forced out of some population centres,
including the country’s second largest city, Benghazi, the centre of the uprising.
From the earliest stages of the crisis, UN officials warned of the threat of mass
atrocities and characterized the situation in terms of the Responsibility to
Protect.75 So did UN member states. On 22 February, the Security Council
issued a statement condemning ‘violence and use of force against civilians’ and
urging the Libyan government ‘to meet its responsibility to protect its popu-
lation’.76 On 25 February, the UN Human Rights Council called upon Libya to
‘meet its responsibility to protect its population, to immediately put an end to
all human rights violations, to stop any attacks against civilians’.77 The following
day, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1970, which reiterated Libya’s
‘responsibility to protect its population’ and imposed an arms embargo on the
country, among other things.78
In spite of these warnings, Qaddafi’s forces continued their offensive, battling
rebels and firing on unarmed protesters in full view of international news media.79
The opposition, now forming into armed militias, lost territory and called on the
UN to impose a no-fly zone. The Arab League also urged the Security Council ‘to
immediately impose a no-fly zone on Libyan military aviation and establish safe
areas in areas that are exposed to bombardment’.80 The Gulf Cooperation
Council and the Organization of Islamic Conference issued similar statements.81
With rebels in full retreat, pro-Qaddafi army units and militias approached Ben-
ghazi, whose residents braced for an assault. On 17 March, the Libyan leader
broadcast an ominous message to rebels in Benghazi: ‘We are coming tonight . . .
We will find you in your closets . . . We will have no mercy and no pity’ to anyone
who resists.82
A few hours later, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1973. American,
French and British aircraft and missiles soon targeted pro-regime forces outside
Benghazi as well as Libya’s air defence system across the country. These airstrikes
prevented Libyan armoured columns from entering the city and largely neutral-
ized anti-aircraft threats to NATO warplanes. Less than 24 hours later,
however, there were signs of ‘buyer’s remorse’ among some who had called for
UN-sponsored military action. The Arab League’s earlier appeal for outside inter-
vention had been an important step in building international support for Resol-
ution 1973, but now the organization’s Secretary-General, Amr Moussa, was
openly questioning the mission: ‘What is happening in Libya differs from the
aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians
and not the bombardment of more civilians.’83 Moussa soon reaffirmed his
support for the intervention, but his qualms foreshadowed sharper criticism
from other quarters later in the operation.
Once Western warplanes halted the Libyan advance on Benghazi and pushed
Qaddafi’s forces back some distance to the west, a stalemate emerged on the
ground. Rebels lacked the military might and organization to dislodge regime
forces from their redoubts, while Libyan government troops could not cross
open ground to engage the rebels without the risk of being attacked by NATO
aircraft, which dominated the airspace. Yet, NATO and the intervening coalition
faced mounting political pressure to end their mission as quickly as possible. In
particular, Russia and China, both of which had abstained in the vote on Resol-
ution 1973, turned against the mission, as did South Africa, an important regional
actor, which had voted in favour of the resolution. All three countries expressed
misgivings at the conduct and apparent aims of the NATO-led intervention,
which, they argued, was now exceeding the civilian protection scope of its
mandate. Meanwhile, continued bombing and the perception of a strategic stale-
mate was wearing away at the internal unity of the war-fighting coalition. Italian
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s public statement questioning the mission –
‘I was against and I am against this intervention’ – raised eyebrows not least
because Italy housed the headquarters of the international maritime and air cam-
paign, now known as Operation Unified Protector.84
Faced with these strategic and political challenges, NATO apparently decided
to tip the battlefield balance in favour of Libyan opposition forces, including by
expanding the scope of the NATO bombing campaign. Although Canadian Lieu-
tenant-General Charles Bouchard, commander of Operation Unified Protector,
insisted during and after the mission that he was guided only by considerations
of civilian protection,85 NATO’s actions reflected a more aggressive interpret-
ation of Resolution 1973.86 Targets now seemed to include virtually any
Libyan military asset, broadly defined to include buildings where senior political
officials in the Libyan chain of command were thought to be located.87 Some
coalition countries also began providing direct support to Libyan opposition
fighters, in apparent contravention of Resolutions 1970 and 1973.88 France
admitted to air-dropping light weapons and ammunition to rebels in the moun-

tains south-west of Tripoli, for example, even though the Security Council
mandate had included a mandatory arms embargo on the entire country.89
Qatar also reportedly provided some 20,000 tons in weapons to the rebels
‘with the blessing of Western intelligence agencies’,90 and later acknowledged
that it had provided ‘hundreds of troops’ to support the Libyan opposition.91
Whether the deployment of Qatari ground forces also violated Resolution
1973’s prohibition on the deployment of ‘a foreign occupation force of any
form on any part of Libyan territory’ was open to interpretation,92 but it
raised doubts about whether the main purpose of the intervention was to
protect civilians or to help opposition fighters vanquish Qaddafi’s military.93
Outside assistance gave the rebels a decisive advantage on the ground. Tripoli
was surrounded and fell in late August. A few weeks later, opposition militias
fought their way into the last bastions of Qaddafi loyalists. On 20 October, the
Libyan leader was discovered in a convoy of vehicles. NATO aircraft fired on
the convoy, stopping it.94 Rebels then captured Qaddafi and later killed him.
On 31 October, NATO announced the end of Operation Unified Protector.
Structural Problems Exposed

Even before the mission was over, it became the focus of controversy and criti-
cism, much of which focused on the decisions and actions of the interveners,
including the allegation that they overstepped the terms of their civilian-protec-
tion mandate and transformed the operation into a de facto regime change enter-
prise. What most of these critics failed to note, however, was that the interveners
were responding to pressures and tensions in the strategic logic of this kind of
operation. Indeed, the main criticisms of the mission could be traced back to,
and illuminated, the structural problems of preventive humanitarian intervention.
For example, there was a clear disjuncture between the requirements of pre-
venting a mass atrocity in Benghazi and the conditions for terminating the inter-
national intervention – a manifestation of the end-state problem. After the
situation had settled into a stalemate, the interveners faced a number of undesir-
able options. First, having apparently saved Benghazi from an imminent assault,
they could have declared the operation a success and ended it there. Doing so,
however, would almost certainly have placed Benghazi back at risk from pro-
Qaddafi forces. Moreover, Resolution 1973 had called for the protection of civi-
lians and civilian-populated areas in Libya, not just Benghazi. There were several
other population centres in country, particularly in the east, whose inhabitants
had risen up against the Qaddafi regime and remained under threat. Terminating
the operation at this stage would have probably placed these areas back at risk,
too, contrary to the purposes of both the Security Council resolution and R2P.
A second option was to negotiate a peace settlement between the Qaddafi
regime and its opponents. The African Union called for this approach.95 In prac-
tice, however, neither NATO nor the Libyan rebels seemed interested in pursuing
negotiations with Qaddafi.96 Nor is it clear that the Libyan leader or those around
him would have negotiated in good faith, rather than seeking to buy time while
the political integrity of the NATO-led coalition continued to fray. Nevertheless,
it is worth considering what this option might have entailed. A negotiated settle-
ment would have probably led to the deployment of a large international force to
oversee and verify compliance with the agreement on the ground.97 This would
have likely been a protracted ground deployment policing what amounted to a
civil war between a beleaguered authoritarian regime and a popular uprising –
a different mission than the initial, more limited, atrocity-prevention operation.
A third option was to remove the Qaddafi government, thus eliminating the
threat which had prompted emergency action. However, given that Resolution
1973 referred only to protecting civilians and civilian-populated areas and that
a broad intervention coalition had been assembled on this basis, any regime-
change efforts would have needed to be conducted surreptitiously. This is appar-
ently what happened. As we have seen, the coalition began striking a wider array
of targets from the air and providing direct assistance to rebel military units on the
ground. In addition, new airborne weapons systems were introduced into the
theatre, including American armed ‘Predator’ drones as well as French and
British ground-attack helicopters.98 These could be flown at low altitudes and
served, in effect, as close-air support for Libyan rebels as they became a more
organized and effective fighting force. British, French and Italian military advisers
were sent to help the rebels ‘improve their military organizational structures,
communications and logistics’ so that they could better ‘organize the protection
of the civilian population’.99 In the meantime, NATO reportedly ‘looked the
other way’ as weapons were shipped to the rebels through the naval quarantine
of Libya.100 In spite of this, NATO continued to portray the purposes of the oper-
ation as fundamentally unchanged and faithful to its original mandate.
In summary, all three of these options were problematic. The requirements for
achieving a sustainable outcome of the operation were necessarily more complex
and involved than the immediate task of protecting civilians from an immediate
threat. Mandate-expansion appeared to be built into the logic of the mission at its
initial deployment – the end-state problem.
The controversy surrounding NATO’s actions also illustrated the effects of
the mixed motives problem. Some observers claimed that regime change was
the interveners’ intention from the start. In fact, many of the countries in the
coalition, including France, Britain and the United States, had made no secret
of their desire to see Qaddafi removed from power. On the other hand, they sim-
ultaneously insisted that the military intervention, itself, had more limited goals:
to protect Libyan civilians.101 These claims were only plausible during the initial
phases of the operation, when the coalition concentrated on destroying regime
military targets near Benghazi and neutralizing Qaddafi’s air forces and air
defence systems – actions that were consistent with a relatively narrow focus
on preventing imminent mass atrocities. Indeed, given the speed with which the
intervention had to be organized, there may have been little time to develop a
plan for the post-emergency phase, or even to conceive of how the mission
would conclude. As one analyst put it, there was ‘no small amount of confusion
about what the strategic goals of the military operations actually were’, which
yielded ‘ambiguity’ in the anticipated ‘strategic end states’ of the intervention.102
Whether this ambiguity was accidental or deliberately cultivated, the fact that
some coalition leaders had so openly articulated their desire to unseat Qaddafi
cast doubts on their intentions. Here, we see the mixed motives problem at
work: if interveners have both humanitarian and other-than-humanitarian
reasons for employing armed force, suspicions about the authenticity of their
humanitarian motives and objectives may be unavoidable – and may delegitimize
the mission as a whole. In the Libyan case, these suspicions were heightened by
the behaviour of the NATO-led coalition after it had secured Benghazi. At that
juncture, the interveners’ apparent shift towards regime change had the effect
of retrospectively tainting the humanitarianism of the initial intervention. What
might have been, at the outset, a limited and genuinely humanitarian effort to
prevent an imminent mass atrocity ended up looking more like a ‘bait and
switch’ in the light of what later transpired.
The political costs for the interveners and for R2P were significant. Attempts
by the coalition countries to portray their actions as strictly adhering to the civi-
lian-protection mandate of Resolution 1973 stretched the limits of credulity, even
in the eyes of sympathetic observers.103 Some were quite harsh in their criticism,
including President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, whose government had voted in
favour of the resolution, but who now declared: ‘We strongly believe that the res-
olution is being abused for regime change, political assassinations and foreign
military occupation.’104 Other observers also suggested that the operation had
‘done grave, possibly even irreparable, damage to R2P’s prospects of becoming
a global norm’105 and had ‘destroyed the prospects for future legitimate uses of
the responsibility to protect’.106
The conspicuous harm problem intensified this backlash. Images of war –
even a ‘good’ war – tend to be shocking. This may explain why the ‘sight of
attack aircraft targeting Libyan command and control facilities’ in the eyes of
some observers ‘did not look, resemble, or feel, like humanitarian protection’.107
In reality, the number of civilians killed in the bombing seems to have been quite
small by comparison to other military operations, but these casualties, and other
destructive effects of the bombing, were nevertheless highly visible.108 In the face
of a ‘barrage of pictures of bombed mosques, sad-eyed children in wrecked
schools or wounded civilians and corpses in hospitals’,109 not only did the
Arab League’s support for the operation waver,110 but reports of collateral
damage also sapped NATO’s credibility.111 According to one seasoned observer
of European and transatlantic politics, ‘NATO was pushed to its limit over Libya,
and just barely avoided a public break-up.’112 Disagreement over the use of
armed force, sharpened by images of the bombing’s consequences, was the prin-
cipal point of discord.
Moreover, the behaviour of some Libyan rebels exacerbated the conspicuous
harm problem. NATO was accused of complicity in atrocities allegedly com-
mitted by rebel forces during their ground assault against pro-regime units.113
These included an incident that Human Rights Watch called an ‘apparent mass
execution’ of regime loyalists in Sirte, where Qaddafi’s forces made their last
stand.114 These actions, some critics charged, took place ‘under the cover’ of
NATO’s military support.115 The killing of Qaddafi also raised questions about
whether rebels had committed war crimes; videos appeared to show grotesque
mistreatment of his body, both immediately before and after his death.116 The
rebel political leadership, which became Libya’s de facto government after Qad-
dafi’s demise, lacked the will or capacity to investigate these and other crimes that
rebel fighters allegedly committed during and after the 2011 conflict.117 This, too,
tarnished the outcome of the NATO operation, particularly since the mission’s
declared rationale was to uphold humanitarian values and international law.
The enduring state of lawlessness in Libya can also be counted among the
indirect costs of the NATO intervention – and is another reflection of the
end-state problem. With limited control over the hundreds of militias that
formed during and after the conflict, Libya’s new government, comprised of the
former rebel leadership, had little capacity to manage the chaotic and sometimes
violent struggle for power in the country.118 Attacks on foreign targets, such as
the US consulate in Benghazi and the French embassy in Tripoli, and public dem-
onstrations of force by some militias, including their occupation of government
ministry buildings, were among the early symptoms of this state of chaos,
which escalated into open inter-factional fighting. Some commentators directly
blamed ‘Western disengagement’ for Libya’s lawlessness.119 Interestingly, these
critics appeared to include Gen. Bouchard, who commanded the 2011 NATO
operation but later observed that the international role in Libya after the
regime’s fall was ‘insufficient to accomplish the stability objective that we set
for ourselves’.120 Others argued that NATO had done too little to secure light
and heavy weapons in Qaddafi’s arsenals, many of which were looted during
the conflict and found their way into neighbouring Mali, Egypt and other
countries.121 A UN panel reported to the Security Council in April 2013 that
Libyan weapons were ‘fueling existing conflicts in Africa and the Levant and
enriching the arsenals of a range of non-state actors, including terrorist
groups’.122 This was particularly visible in Mali, where a regional rebellion inten-
sified, reinforced by fighters returning from Libya and transnational jihadists,
many of whom wielded weapons from Qaddafi’s looted armouries.123
These were some of the costs attributed to the Libyan intervention. What,
then, were its benefits? Due to the counterfactual problem, these were less
obvious. President Obama and his British and French counterparts asserted
that the NATO-led operation had ‘prevented a bloodbath’ and that ‘tens of thou-
sands of lives’ had been ‘protected’.124 Gareth Evans and Ramesh Thakur simi-
larly wrote that ‘tens of thousands of lives, in Benghazi and elsewhere, were
almost certainly saved by’ the intervention.125 The US Permanent Representative
of NATO and the Supreme Allied Commander Europe also claimed that the oper-
ation ‘saved tens of thousands of lives from almost certain destruction’.126 All of
these assertions, however, have rested on counterfactual assumptions that are
easily called into question. For example, based on a different set of assumptions,
Alan Kuperman estimates that the Libyan conflict would have lasted six weeks
and inflicted 1,100 deaths had NATO not intervened – considerably fewer
than the numbers cited above.127 There is no way to resolve this debate.
Nobody can know what would have happened if NATO had not intervened.128
Given this degree of uncertainty, was the decision to intervene a responsible

one? Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to consider the information
that was available to Western decision-makers prior to the operation. The
language of Qaddafi’s threat against Benghazi on 17 March 2011 was exception-
ally clear: ‘We’ll clean Benghazi, all of Benghazi, of the deviants and of anyone
who tries to harm our leader and our revolution . . . We will show no mercy to col-
laborators ... Tomorrow, the whole world will watch Benghazi and see what will
happen in it.’129 Given that Qaddafi had already displayed his willingness to use
heavy weapons, including warplanes and helicopters, against unarmed protes-
ters,130 and that regime forces were closing in on Benghazi,131 his words
seemed chillingly credible. Although leaders in sub-Saharan Africa tended to
view these events more as a ‘contest between Qaddafi and his rivals’ than as an
assault on civilians,132 the latter interpretation prevailed in other parts of the
world and in the Security Council. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon later
wrote, there was ‘a clear threat to civilians’ in eastern Libya from a regime that
had ‘demonstrated its readiness to carry out large-scale killings’.133 Moreover,
Qaddafi’s reference to Libyan protesters as ‘cockroaches’ had a ‘special resonance
for those who remembered how Tutsis were described before the 1994 genocide
in Rwanda’.134
Indeed, the shadow of genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia seemed to loom large
in the US decision to intervene in Libya. ‘We learned a lot in the 1990s’, said Sec-
retary of State Hillary Clinton after the Libya mission began. ‘We saw what hap-
pened in Rwanda. It took a long time in the Balkans, in Kosovo to deal with a
tyrant.’135 She then invited her interviewer to imagine the situation if NATO
had not reacted to Qaddafi’s threat, allowing Benghazi to be overrun. In such cir-
cumstances, she argued, ‘the cries would be: Why did the United States not do
anything?’136 Senior White House Middle East adviser Dennis Ross offered a
similar view: ‘We were looking at “Srebrenica on steroids”’, he said, referring
to the Bosnian city whose male population was massacred in the 1990s.137 If
the USA and NATO had not acted, he added, ‘everyone would blame us for
it’.138 The remarks by Clinton and Ross appeared to contain a note of exasper-
ation at questions about the necessity and results of the Libyan intervention;
and they seemed to be trying to make the alternative reality as real as possible.
President Obama, in his public remarks, also highlighted the possible costs of
inaction: ‘I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before
taking action.’139 Nevertheless, there is no escaping the counterfactual problem
in this type of mission: it is impossible to know how many lives the NATO inter-
vention saved in Benghazi and eastern Libya, or whether the number of saved
lives ultimately outweighed the destructive impact and second-order effects of
the operation.
On the other hand, Clinton and Ross were probably correct that a decision not
to intervene would have provoked sharp criticism of the USA, NATO and the UN
for failing to act while a foreseeable and preventable massacre was unfolding.
R2P, too, would likely have been denounced as hollow or hypocritical. In this
sense, US officials seemed quite conscious of the inconsistency problem, including
the reputational costs of making commitments to act against mass atrocities, but
failing to take such action. As it turned out, the inconsistency problem became
acutely visible in the aftermath of the Libya operation, when the Security
Council was unable to reach agreement on responding to the mounting crisis in
Syria, where another autocrat was targeting his own people.
Inaction on Syria
In 2011, like Mouammar Qaddafi, Syrian President Bashar Hafez al-Assad
responded to initially peaceful protests in his country by sending security forces
to attack the demonstrators. The violence escalated. In February 2012, the
regime deployed artillery, tanks and snipers to subdue opposition in the city of
Homs, where members of the resistance had reportedly congregated. For
several days, Syrian troops conducted what appeared to be indiscriminate shelling
of the city’s civilian neighbourhoods.140 Diplomats and national leaders con-
demned the actions of the Syrian regime.141 The UN’s special advisers on R2P
and for the prevention of genocide issued a joint statement calling for urgent
action ‘to prevent further atrocities against the people of Syria’.142 When the
Security Council took up the matter, however, it was unable to reach agreement
due to the recalcitrance of Russia and China. Both countries attributed their reser-
vations, in part, to NATO’s ‘misuse’ of Resolution 1973 in Libya, which they
wished to avoid in Syria,143 prompting some observers to characterize the inter-
national deadlock on Syria as ‘payback’ for the Libya intervention.144 Others,
however, have questioned Russia and China’s stated rationale for blocking UN
action on Syria, pointing out that Russia, in particular, viewed Assad as a stra-
tegic partner and was continuing to supply him with weapons.145 Whatever the
explanation, the result was paralysis in the Security Council in the face of a
growing crisis.
The lack of a ‘Libya-like’ international military response to the Syrian emer-
gency also reflected Western countries’ reservations about the feasibility and poss-
ible repercussions of intervening in Syria. In early 2012, US military officials
reportedly warned the White House that intervening in that country ‘would be
a daunting and protracted operation . . . with the potential for killing vast
numbers of civilians and plunging the country closer to civil war’.146 Senior
British officers apparently conveyed a comparable message to their government
later in the year.147 Some independent analysts were reaching similar conclusions:
‘Military intervention in Syria has little prospect of success, a high risk of disas-
trous failure, and a near-certainty of escalation.’148 Even President Obama
mused aloud:
In a situation like Syria, I have to ask, can we make a difference in that situ-
ation? Would a military intervention have an impact? ... What would be the
aftermath of our involvement on the ground? Could it trigger even worse
violence or the use of chemical weapons? What offers the best prospect of
a stable post-Assad regime?149
In short, there appeared to be prudential reasons not to intervene in Syria,
including the danger of causing even greater harm. Whether these apprehensions
justified the inaction of the USA and other Western countries was, and remains,
a matter for debate. The point to emphasize here, however, is that this type of
prudential restraint is not incompatible with R2P. As we have seen, the doctrine
does not warrant intervention in every case of imminent, or actual, mass
atrocities.
Justified or not, this selectivity created the appearance of a double standard –
a jarring discrepancy between the forceful reaction to abuses in Libya and the
comparatively anaemic international response to the crisis in Syria. This inconsis-
tency, in turn, raised doubts about the credibility and legitimacy of both R2P and
the Security Council. ‘If the responsibility to protect civilians is a legitimate new
part of international law, why would it apply to Libya and not to Syria?’ asked
one veteran American journalist.150 Others were less diplomatic: ‘If we have no
responsibility to protect, can we at least avoid such hypocrisy?’151 Such views
appeared to be widely shared, including among the Arab countries that had con-
tributed forces to the NATO-led operation in Libya. A government-owned news-
paper in the United Arab Emirates, for instance, argued that international
inaction in the face of continued mass atrocities in Syria had ‘conclusively dis-
proved and discredited’ R2P.152
These and other charges that the Syria crisis had revealed R2P as a ‘hollow
doctrine’153 ‘utterly meaningless’154 and a ‘will-o’-the-wisp’155 pointed directly
to the inconsistency problem in preventive humanitarian intervention. Respond-
ing forcefully to one emergency may create an expectation of similarly robust
action elsewhere, but in many if not most cases such hopes will not be met
because selectivity is unavoidable. Paradoxically, therefore, the more R2P is
used as a basis for coercive military action, the more likely it is to attract criticism
as a hypocritical doctrine. This appears to be what happened in the case of Syria
following the Libya intervention.
Finally, it is worth noting that the circumstances of the Libya operation were
exceptionally propitious for this type of intervention: the threat issued by Qaddafi
was unusually clear; a broad-based coalition of countries and regional organiz-
ations, including the Arab League, the Organization for Islamic Conference
and the Gulf Cooperation Council, had called for the intervention; Libya was
located relatively close to NATO bases, making it feasible to sustain a continuous
aerial presence over the country; and its desert terrain provided near-ideal con-
ditions for the effective use of air power. With all of these pieces in place, one
might have expected the intervention to be a clear success and a vindication of
R2P – but, in the end, it was neither. At best, the intervention yielded mixed
results on the ground, along with a legitimacy crisis for R2P.
Can the Problems Be Fixed?

In the aftermath of the Libyan operation, several proposals have been put forward
to strengthen both R2P and the instrument of preventive humanitarian interven-
tion, but do they offer a solution to the structural problems examined in this
article? To answer this question, this section examines four sets of proposals.
First, Brazil’s ‘Responsibility while Protecting’ paper is arguably the most
prominent set of recommendations on the reform of R2P to be put forward by a
national government following the Libya mission. Second, Robert Pape’s pro-
posed ‘pragmatic standard’ for humanitarian intervention represents one of the
most detailed contributions from the academic world during this period. Third,
the US government’s plans for ‘mass atrocity response operations’ (MARO)
offers a glimpse into an effort to revise the military doctrine of the world’s
most powerful state, partly ‘to help states meet R2P military planning
needs’.156 Finally, Gareth Evans, one of the world’s most prominent proponents
of R2P, offers his own reflections and proposals. As we shall see, while these con-
tributions include useful recommendations, none would resolve the fundamental
structural tensions in this type of military operation.
Brazil’s ‘Responsibility While Protecting’ Proposal

In November 2011, the government of Brazil put forward a paper titled ‘Respon-
sibility While Protecting’.157 Brazil had not opposed Resolution 1973,158 but like
many other countries, it was ‘irritated by NATO’s actions and concerned about
the deep rift that emerged regarding the interpretation and implementation of
the R2P’.159 In its paper, Brazil sought to establish additional safeguards
against the future ‘misuse’ of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, including
four specific recommendations: First, prior to authorizing military action in the
name of R2P, the ‘international community must be rigorous in all its efforts to
exhaust all peaceful means available in the protection of civilians under threat
of violence’ and should conduct ‘a comprehensive and judicious analysis of the
possible consequences of military action’.160 Second, during any such operation,
the use of force ‘must be limited in its legal, operational and temporal elements
and the scope of military action must abide by the letter and the spirit of the
mandate conferred by the Security Council or the General Assembly’.161 Third,
it ‘must produce as little violence and instability as possible and under no circum-
stance can it generate more harm than it was authorized to prevent’.162 Finally,
‘enhanced Security Council procedures’ are needed to ‘monitor and assess the
manner in which resolutions are interpreted and implemented to ensure respon-
sibility while protecting’.163
Whether these proposals offer the basis for ‘a renewed consensus on how to
implement R2P in hard cases’ remains to be seen,164 but one thing is clear: the
paper does little to address the underlying structural problems of preventive
humanitarian intervention. Most of Brazil’s suggestions reiterate the existing
content of R2P, including that force should be used only as a last resort, and
that an intervention should abide by the terms of its mandate and minimize col-
lateral damage. The call for ‘comprehensive and judicious’ analysis wisely enjoins
prospective interveners and the UN to be diligent in their planning, but sheds no
light on the kinds of operational problems and dilemmas they might encounter in
practice. Similarly, the document’s assertion that an R2P intervention should not
‘generate more harm than it was authorized to prevent’ is a fine aspiration, but
fails to address the deeper questions of why these operations may still finish by
doing more harm than good – and, more fundamentally, why they may be judged
more by the harm they cause than by the harm they avert.
The only substantive reform in Brazil’s paper appears to be its suggestion that
the Security Council introduce ‘enhanced’ procedures to ‘monitor and assess’ the
implementation of the resolutions – a proposal that dovetails with the UN Sec-
retary-General’s prior suggestion that ‘missions regularly provide information on
actions to spare civilians from the effects of hostilities’.165 However, while this pro-
posal might introduce greater oversight of operations approved by the Security
Council, it would not, in itself, address the inherent dilemmas of these missions.
Robert Pape’s ‘Pragmatic Standard of Humanitarian Intervention’

Political scientist Robert Pape also attempts to remedy the problems of preventive
humanitarian intervention.166 The main difficulty, he argues, is the absence of a
sensible standard for determining when such operations should be deployed. Pape
contends that the ‘genocide standard’ – that is, unmistakable evidence of clear
intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group – sets the bar too
high, whereas R2P sets the bar ‘so low that virtually any instance . . . of anarchy
or tyranny’ could justify international military action.167 What is needed, he
argues, is a more ‘pragmatic’ standard for humanitarian intervention, which he
presents in three parts. Specifically, such interventions should not be launched
unless there is: (1) an ‘ongoing campaign of mass homicide’; (2) a ‘viable plan
for intervention’, including an expectation of ‘near zero’ casualties among the
interveners; and (3) a ‘workable strategy for creating lasting security, so that
saving lives in the short term does not lead to open-ended chaos’, with many
more killed in the longer term.168
Puzzlingly, Pape seems to be unaware that the 2005 agreement delimited the
scope of R2P to genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleans-
ing – a formulation that was quite similar to the ‘pragmatic’ standard he rec-
ommends: mass homicide. The main difference seems to be his requirement
that a mass homicide should already be ‘ongoing’ and that ‘several thousand’ civi-
lians should have already been killed before a humanitarian intervention is under-
taken, thus establishing ‘a compelling case to permit the violation of state
sovereignty’.169 Although he does not present this recommendation as a
remedy to the counterfactual problem, it could be read that way, since allowing
a mass homicide to begin could serve to remove ‘any reasonable doubts regarding
the [perpetrator] government’s horrific intentions’.170
However, the recommendation is problematic, for three reasons. First, if it
came to light that prospective interveners were, as a matter of policy, waiting
for ‘several thousand’ civilians to be killed before taking action, the human
costs of this wilful delay might ultimately overshadow the perceived benefits of
a ‘belated’ intervention, while also raising doubts about the humanitarian motiv-
ations of the interveners. Second, by waiting for the death toll to mount, outside
actors might miss the window of opportunity to stop mass atrocities, since ‘motiv-
ated and well-organized bands of thugs can kill at a rate that makes delayed
response to save lives futile’.171 Finally, the interveners would still need to
make a counterfactual case about what might have happened, were it not for the
intervention. Indeed, the killing of several thousand civilians is just one of Pape’s
criteria for coercive action: perpetrators should also be expected to ‘kill many
times that number . . . in the near future’.172 In this sense, the counterfactual
problem remains unresolved.
The other structural problems receive less attention. For example, although
Pape argues that interventions should limit the risk to the interveners, he does
not address the implications of collateral damage inflicted by the interveners on
the target society – that is, the conspicuous harm problem. His emphasis on a
need for ‘lasting security’ and an ‘exit strategy’ is helpful because it draws atten-
tion to the end-state problem, but Pape does not offer solutions.173 Further, he
rejects the view that NATO’s intervention in Libya drifted towards regime
change, and he does not acknowledge the backlash that NATO’s actions elicited.
Nor does he appear to recognize that the inconsistency problem would persist,
even if his ‘pragmatic standard’ were applied. In sum, while Pape alludes to
some of the structural problems of this type of operation, his recommendations
do little to remedy them.
Military Planning for ‘Mass Atrocity Response Operations’

The US government’s adoption of new doctrinal guidelines for MARO is another
example of recent efforts to improve the practice of preventive humanitarian
intervention. These guidelines were adopted in August 2012 and incorporated
into the Department of Defence’s field manual on peace operations.174 They rep-
resent a distillation of a longer MARO Handbook, published in 2010 by the Carr
Centre for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University.175 Given the dearth of
research into the methods of preventive humanitarian intervention,176 the publi-
cation of the MARO guidelines and Handbook seemed to represent a break-
through. In practice, however, these documents offer a very limited view of the
structural problems of such operations.
In some respects, the documents are helpful. For example, the field manual
usefully highlights the potential difficulties that interveners may face in dis-
tinguishing ‘perpetrator and victim groups’.177 It also observes that mass atroci-
ties ‘can intensify and expand very quickly once they begin’ and warns that a
foreign intervening force ‘may change the dynamics on the ground’, which can
give rise to ‘second- and third-order effects, intended or unintended’, thus allud-
ing to both the conspicuous harm problem and end-state problem. Further, the
manual emphasizes that such an intervention ‘may be expected to sustain its
efforts beyond the cessation of the killing, to include the provision of services
and restoration of governance’, which also hints at the end-state problem.
Finally, it states that ‘former victim groups may be able to conduct their own
revenge atrocities’, another aspect of the conspicuous harm problem.
However, while these problems are mentioned, they are not explored in any
depth. To acknowledge that certain difficulties may arise is not equivalent to
explaining the source of these problems, how they are endemic to this kind of
military action, or why they defy simple solutions. Perhaps such documents are
not a natural place for this sort of discussion – after all, a field manual is not a
philosophical treatise.178 Nevertheless, by glossing over the structural problems
of preventive humanitarian intervention, the field manual and MARO Handbook
may foster a misplaced sense of confidence in the military and political feasibility
of R2P operations.
Gareth Evans: ‘Rebuild the R2P Consensus’

Gareth Evans has also made suggestions for strengthening the norms and prac-
tices of international atrocities-prevention in the aftermath of the Libya
mission.179 In his view, the operation was ‘at least initially, a textbook
example of how R2P is supposed to work in the face of a rapidly unfolding
mass atrocity situation’, but he acknowledges the ‘continuing resonance’ of criti-
cisms that NATO mishandled the operation.180 The key now, he argues, is to
‘rebuild the consensus’ on R2P that emerged in 2005 and peaked in March
2011, when the Security Council approved the use of armed force to protect
Libyan civilians.181 Specifically, he calls for progress in five areas: clarifying the
criteria for authorizing coercive military force; devoting greater attention to
non-military methods of averting atrocities, such as diplomatic initiatives and tar-
geted sanctions; emphasizing longer-term preventive strategies to address the
underlying sources of conflict and threats to civilians; further developing the insti-
tutional capacities of international and regional organizations and national gov-
ernments for emergency response; and reframing discussions of ‘national
interests’ so that they recognize the importance of international cooperation to
address the problem of mass atrocities.182
Constructive as they may be, Evans’ recommendations do not deal with the
structural problems described above. He characterizes the controversies of the
Libya mission as ‘the inevitable teething problems associated with the evolution
of any major new international norm’.183 However, if these problems are embedded
in the logic of R2P and preventive humanitarian intervention, as I have argued, they
are not simply transitory ‘teething’ challenges. Indeed, Evans’ own analysis might
have led him to this conclusion. Although he subscribes to the view that the
NATO-led operation exceeded its initial civilian-protection mandate and ‘would
settle for nothing less than regime change’,184 he qualifies this criticism by suggesting
that the coalition may not have had a choice: ‘It may be that the Libyan intervention
could not practicably have been conducted any other way.’185 This observation is
pregnant with implications. It hints at the some of the structural problems that
are the subject of this article, including the end-state problem. However, Evans
lets this sentence stand without exploring its implications. If he had continued, he
might have reached the paradoxical conclusion that the R2P consensus broke
down because the doctrine worked. In other words, the controversy over the
Libya mission and the backlash against R2P were not due to a lack of political
will, or to insufficiently clear criteria for triggering an intervention, or to a shortage
of institutional machinery for emergency response, or to any of the other elements
that Evans emphasizes in his plan to rehabilitate the doctrine. Rather, the fault
was an endogenous one: R2P was a victim of its own success.
Conclusion: A Self-Limiting Doctrine?
The structural problems of preventive humanitarian intervention cannot be defi-
nitively resolved. They are – and will remain – endemic to this type of military
operation, and hence also to R2P. This is not to suggest that the doctrine is des-
tined to fail. As a set of broad principles, R2P continues to enjoy international
support. When the UN General Assembly held a session in September 2012 dedi-
cated to discussing R2P, for example, most states reaffirmed their support for the
doctrine, even as many raised questions about its application.186 Moreover, as
noted above, the doctrine is about more than just coercive intervention. It also
encompasses the non-military elements that fall under the first and second
‘pillars’ of R2P, from human rights monitoring to various types of international
assistance aimed at reducing the risks of mass atrocities occurring in the first
place.
Nevertheless, the structural problems in R2P’s third pillar are profound. As we
have seen, the mixed motives problem makes preventive humanitarian interven-
tions prone to delegitimization, the counterfactual problem makes it inherently
difficult to demonstrate their effectiveness, the conspicuous harm problem
focuses attention on their human and financial costs, the end-state problem
creates pressures for mandate expansion, and the inconsistency problem makes
R2P seem fickle or hypocritical. Each of these problems is uniquely daunting,
but they also interact with – and magnify – each other. As a result, attempts to
use the coercive instruments of the R2P doctrine are very likely to backfire, both
on the interveners and on the doctrine itself. On the other hand, if these instru-
ments were to be abandoned or rejected, R2P would likely be discredited and dis-
missed as hollow, because there would be no prospect of military action to uphold
the principles of human protection, even in the most extreme crises. This is the
paradox at the heart of the doctrine.
The Libya operation should have been the crowning achievement for R2P –
and in some ways it was. An overt threat that raised genuine concerns about
the possibility of imminent mass atrocities was countered quickly and decisively.
Yet, it was also a major setback for the doctrine, displaying all the pathologies
associated with the structural problems that I have described in this article. Put
differently, R2P failed because it worked; using the doctrine exposed its under-
lying flaws. Indeed, the more it is employed as a basis for military action, the
more likely it is to be discredited. The same will likely hold true, however, if its
coercive tools go unused. R2P is thus trapped by its own internal logic. It may
not be destined to fail, but it does seem fated to flounder.
ACKNOWLEDEGMENTS
My thanks to Richard Caplan, Neil Cooper, Michael Doyle, Ian Hurd, Mark Kersten, Jason Lyall,
Marc Lynch, Kimberly Marten, John Mearsheimer, David Petrasek, Taylor Seybolt, Oisı́n Tansey,
Thomas Weiss, Jennifer Welsh, Paul Williams and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful com-
ments. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 2012 annual conference of the International
Studies Association in San Diego, California, and at Northwestern University as part of the Barry
Farrell Speakership in April 2012. This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Roland Paris is director of the Centre for International Policy Studies and associate professor in the
Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa.
NOTES
1. UN General Assembly, ‘2005 World Summit Outcome’, UN doc., A/60/L.1, 15 Sep. 2005,
paras. 138–9. Responsibility to Protect should not be confused with a related concept: the pro-
tection of civilians in situations of war. R2P, by contrast, applies specifically to genocide, war
crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. On the differences between the two con-
cepts, see Thierry Tardy, ‘The Dangerous Liaisons of the Responsibility to Protect and the Pro-
tection of Civilians in Peacekeeping Operations’, Global Responsibility to Protect, Vol.4, No.4,
2012, pp. 424 –48.
2. There is no canonical definition of humanitarian intervention. For an analysis of several different
definitions, see Thomas G. Weiss, Humanitarian Intervention, 2nd edn, Cambridge: Polity,
2012, pp.6– 15. For the purposes of this article, ‘preventive humanitarian intervention’ involves:
(1) the use of military force, (2) by an outside state or coalition of states or by an international
organization, (3) for the purposes of preventing mass atrocities including genocide and crimes
against humanity, and (4) against the wishes of the target state.
3. UN Security Council Resolution 1973, 17 Mar. 2011, para.4. Although the UN had previously
approved the use of ‘all necessary measures’, or armed force, for humanitarian purposes else-
where, Resolution 1973 represented the first time the Security Council had ‘authorized the
use of military force for human protection purposes against a functioning de jure government’.
See Paul D. Williams and Alex J. Bellamy, ‘Principles, Politics, and Prudence: Libya, the Respon-
sibility to Protect, and the Use of Military Force’, Global Governance, Vol.18, No.3, 2012,
p.273.
4. Gareth Evans, ‘Responsibility While Protecting’, Project Syndicate, 27 Jan. 2012 (at: www.project-
syndicate.org/commentary/responsibility-while-protecting); and Ramesh Thakur, ‘UN Breathes
New Life into “Responsibility to Protect”’, Toronto Star, 21 Mar. 2011 (at: www.thestar.com/
opinion/editorialopinion/2011/03/21/un_breathes_life_intoresponsibility_to_protect.html).
5. International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), The Responsibility to
Protect, Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2001.
6. Ten countries voted in favour of Resolution 1973 (Bosnia, Britain, Colombia, France, Gabon,
Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal, South Africa and the United States) and five abstained (Brazil,
China, Germany, India and Russia).
7. As noted above, the R2P provisions in the 2005 World Summit outcome were approved unan-
imously. It was partly for this reason that Michael Doyle described the rise of R2P as ‘[o]ne of
the truly striking evolutions in international norms of our time’. See Michael Doyle, ‘Inter-
national Ethics and the Responsibility to Protect’, International Studies Review, Vol.13,
No.1, 2011, p.72.
8. I elaborate this point, with references to the literature, below.
9. Thakur (see n.4 above).
10. Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock, ‘A Victory for the Responsibility to Protect’, Ottawa Citizen,
25 Oct. 2011, p.A13.
11. Phil Orchard, ‘The Evolution of the Responsibility to Protect: At a Crossroads?’, International
Affairs, Vol.88, No.2, 2012, pp.377–86.
12. UN Department of Public Information, ‘“Responsibility to Protect” Came of Age in 2011, Sec-
retary-General Tells Conference, Stressing Need to Prevent Conflict Before It Breaks Out’, UN
doc., SG/SM/14068, 18 Jan. 2012.
13. White House, ‘Presidential Study Directive on Mass Atrocities’, (PSD-10), 4 Aug. 2011 (at:
www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/08/04/presidential-study-directive-mass-atrocities).
On the Obama Administration’s embrace of R2P, see Bruce W. Jentleson, ‘The Obama Admin-
istration and R2P: Progress, Problems and Prospects’, Global Responsibility to Protect, Vol.4,
No.4, 2012, pp.399–423.
14. Adam Roberts, ‘NATO’s Humanitarian War over Kosovo’, Survival, Vol.41, No.3, 1999,
p.110.
15. Kurt Mills and Cian O’Driscoll, ‘From Humanitarian Intervention to the Responsibility to
Protect’, The International Studies Encyclopedia, London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, pp.2532–
52.
16. For example, see Miles Kahler, ‘Legitimacy, Humanitarian Intervention, and International Insti-
tutions’, Politics, Philosophy and Economics, Vol.10, No.1, 2011, pp.20–45; James Pattison,
Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: Who Should Intervene?,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010; Michael Newman, Humanitarian Intervention: Con-
fronting the Contradictions, New York: Columbia University Press, 2009; Louise Arbour,
‘The Responsibility to Protect as a Duty of Care in International Practice’, Review of Inter-
national Studies, Vol.34, No.3, 2008, pp.445– 58; Terry Nardin and Melissa S. Williams
(eds), Humanitarian Intervention, New York: New York University Press, 2006; J.L. Holzgrefe
and Robert O. Keohane (eds), Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal and Political Dilem-
mas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003; Jennifer M. Welsh (ed.), Humanitarian
Intervention and International Relations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003; Nicholas
J. Wheeler, Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000; Adam Roberts, ‘The So-Called “Right” of Humanitarian Inter-
vention’, Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law, Vol.3, 2000, pp.3– 51; Mona Fixdal
and Dan Smith, ‘Humanitarian Intervention and Just War’, Mershon International Studies
Review, Vol.42, No.2, 1998, pp.283–312; Michael J. Smith, ‘Humanitarian Intervention: An
Overview of the Ethical Issues’, Ethics and International Affairs, Vol.12, No.1, 1998, pp.63–
79; Oliver Ramsbotham, ‘Humanitarian Intervention 1990– 5: A Need to Reconceptualize?’,
Review of International Studies, Vol.23, No.4, 1997, pp.445–68; and Ruth E. Gordon, ‘Huma-
nitarian Intervention by the United Nations: Iraq, Somalia, and Haiti’, Texas Journal of Inter-
national Law, Vol.31, No.1, 1996, pp.43–56.
17. Exceptions include: Robert Pape, ‘When Duty Calls: A Pragmatic Standard of Humanitarian
Intervention’, International Security, Vol.37, No.1, 2012, pp.41–80; Alan J. Kuperman, ‘The
Moral Hazard of Humanitarian Intervention: Lessons from the Balkans’, International
Studies Quarterly, Vol.52, No.1, 2008, pp.49– 80; Taylor B. Seybolt, Humanitarian Military
Intervention: The Conditions for Success and Failure, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007;
Thomas G. Weiss, Humanitarian Crises and the Responsibility to Protect: Intervening in Huma-
nitarian Crises, 2nd edn, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005; Alan J. Kuperman, The
Limits of Humanitarian Intervention: Genocide in Rwanda, Washington, DC: Brookings Insti-
tution, 2001; and Richard K. Betts, ‘The Delusion of Impartial Intervention’, Foreign Affairs,
Vol.73, No.6, 1994, pp.20–33.
18. The main academic journal for writings on R2P, Global Responsibility to Protect, whose
content mirrors the broader literature on this subject, has been dominated by articles on the
legal and ethical aspects of R2P. Even works that explicitly set out to shift the academic discus-
sion of R2P ‘from principle to practice’ have remained largely focused on matters of principle.
See, for example, Julia Hoffmann and André Nollkaemper (eds), Responsibility to Protect: From
Principle to Practice, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012. For a useful survey of the
R2P literature, see Hugh Breakey, ‘The Responsibility to Protect and the Protection of Civilians
in Armed Conflict: Review and Analysis’ Working Paper, Griffith University, Australia: Institute
for Ethics, Governance and Law, Jan. 2012 (at: http://academia.edu/2212193).
19. Victoria K. Holt and Tobias C. Berkman, The Impossible Mandate? Military as Preparedness,
the Responsibility to Protect and Modern Peace Operations, Washington, DC: Henry
L. Stimson Center, 2006, p.103.
20. Jennifer Welsh, ‘Civilian Protection in Libya: Putting Coercion and Controversy Back into
RtoP’, Ethics and International Affairs, Vol.25, No.3, 2011, p.261.
21. Report of the Secretary-General, ‘Implementing the Responsibility to Protect’, UN doc., A/63/
677, 12 Jan. 2009.
22. Ibid., p. 8.
23. The difference between this kind of military assistance and preventive humanitarian interven-
tion is that the former is invited whereas the latter is imposed.
24. Meredith Preston-McGhie and Serena Sharma, ‘Kenya’, in Jared Genser and Irwin Cotler (eds),
The Responsibility to Protect: The Promise of Stopping Mass Atrocities in Our Time, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2011.
25. See, for example, Kenneth J. Campbell, ‘Lack of Political Will’, in Samuel Totten (ed.), Impedi-
ments to the Prevention and Intervention of Genocide, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2013,
pp.31– 45; Pattison (see n.16 above), pp.248– 9; Gareth Evans, The Responsibility to Protect:
Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press,
2009, ch.10; and Alex J. Bellamy, ‘Realizing the Responsibility to Protect’, International Studies
Perspectives, Vol.10, No.2, 2009, pp.119– 20.
26. See, for example, Gareth Evans, ‘Responding to Atrocities: The New Geopolitics of Interven-
tion’, in SIPRI Yearbook 2012: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp.33–5; Government of Brazil, ‘Letter Dated 9
November 2011 from the Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations Addressed
to the Secretary-General’, UN doc., A/66/551-S/2011/701, 11 Nov. 2011; and Pattison (see n.16
above), pp.219–27.
27. See, for example, Alex J. Bellamy, ‘Mainstreaming the Responsibility to Protect in the United
Nations System: Dilemmas, Challenges and Opportunities’, Global Responsibility to Protect,
Vol.5, No.2, 2013, pp.154– 91; ‘The Role of Regional and Subregional Arrangements in
Strengthening the Responsibility to Protect’, Conference Report, Stanley Foundation, New
York, 11 May 2011; Allen Buchanan and Robert O. Keohane, ‘Precommitment Regimes for
Intervention: Supplementing the Security Council’, Ethics and International Affairs, Vol.25,
No.1, 2011, pp.41–63; and Micah Zenko, ‘Saving Lives with Speed: Using Rapidly Deployable
Forces for Genocide Prevention’, Defense and Security Analysis, Vol.20, No.1, 2004, pp.3–19.
28. Ian Hurd, ‘Is Humanitarian Intervention Legal? The Rule of Law in an Incoherent World’,
Ethics and International Affairs, Vol.25, No.3, 2011, pp.293– 313.
29. Michael Barnett, The Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism, Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 2011, p.221.
30. Andreas Krieg, Motivations for Humanitarian Intervention: Theoretical and Empirical Con-
siderations, Dordrecht: Springer, 2013; and Alynna J. Lyon and Chris J. Dolan, ‘American
Humanitarian Intervention: Toward a Theory of Coevolution’, Foreign Policy Analysis,
Vol.3, No.1, 2007, pp.46– 78.
31. Alynna J. Lyon and Chris J. Dolon, ‘American Humanitarian Intervention: Toward a Theory of
Coevolution’, Foreign Policy Analysis, Vol.3, No.1, 2007, p.50.
32. Krieg (see n.30 above), p.126.
33. Robert W. Murray, ‘Humanitarianism, Responsibility or Rationality? Evaluating Intervention
as State Strategy’, in Aidan Hehir and Robert W. Murray (eds), Libya, the Responsibility to
Protect and the Future of Humanitarian Intervention, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
2013, p.16.
34. Martin Binder, ‘Humanitarian Crises and the International Politics of Selectivity’, Human
Rights Review, Vol.10, No.3, 2009, pp.327–48.
35. Ibid., p.345.
36. Michael Walzer, ‘The Argument about Humanitarian Intervention’, Dissent, Vol.49, No.1,
2002, p.33.
37. Weiss (see n.2 above), p.8.
38. Seyom Brown and Ronald E. Neumann, ‘An Evolving Hope That’s Here to Stay’, The American
Interest, 12 Jun. 2013 (at: www.the-american-interest.com/articles/2013/06/12/an-evolving-
hope-thats-here-to-stay).
39. Aidan Hehir, ‘The Permanence of Inconsistency: Libya, the Security Council, and the Respon-
sibility to Protect’, International Security, Vol.38, No.1, 2013, pp.137–59.
40. Arbour (see n.16 above).
41. See, for example, Pattison (n.16 above), pp.153– 80; Fernando R. Tesón, ‘Eight Principles for
Humanitarian Intervention’, Journal of Military Ethics, Vol.5, No.2, 2006, pp.93–113; and
Wil Verwey, ‘The Legality of Humanitarian Intervention after the Cold War’, in Elizabeth
G. Ferris (ed.), A Challenge to Intervene: A New Role for the United Nations? Uppsala: Life
and Peace Institute, 1992, p.114.
42. Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun, ‘The Responsibility to Protect’, Foreign Affairs, Vol.81,
No.6, 2002, p.104.
43. Wheeler (see n.16 above), p.38. See also Jennifer M. Welsh, ‘From Right to Responsibility:
Humanitarian Intervention and International Society’, Global Governance, Vol.8, No.4,
2002, p.515.
44. Peter Menzies, ‘Counterfactual Theories of Causation’, in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2014 (at: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/
entries/causation-counterfactual).
45. Jay Ulfelder, ‘Beware the Confident Counterfactual’, Dart-Throwing Chimp blog, 15 Jun. 2014 (at:
http://dartthrowingchimp.wordpress.com/2014/06/15/beware-the-confident-counterfactual).
46. Seybolt (see n.17 above).
47. This vagueness is especially visible in Seybolt’s discussion of particular cases, such as the inter-
national intervention in East Timor. In the absence of that intervention, Seybolt writes, ‘violence
against unarmed civilians could easily have taken thousands of lives’ (see n.17 above), p.91, but
whether it would have done so, and just how many lives were saved, were unclear.
48. J.L. Holzgrefe, ‘The Humanitarian Intervention Debate’, in Holzgrefe and Keohane (see n.16
above), p.50.
49. Alexander L. George and Richard Smoke, ‘Deterrence and Foreign Policy’, World Politics,
Vol.41, No.2, 1989, p.178.
50. Benjamin Valentino takes this point a step further, arguing that ‘it is nearly impossible to employ
military force without simultaneously violating important humanitarian and legal norms’. See
Benjamin Valentino, ‘The Perils of Humanitarian Intervention: Lessons from the 1990s’, Wis-
consin International Law Journal, Vol.24, No.3, 2006, p.730.
51. David Dunning and Scott F. Madey, ‘Comparison Processes in Counterfactual Thought’, in
Neal J. Roese and James M. Olson (eds), What Might Have Been: The Social Psychology of
Counterfactual Thinking, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1995, pp.110–11.
52. In addition, recent research suggests that external intervention in a civil war on the side of rebel
factions (as opposed to pro-government or neutral interventions) may have the unintended con-
sequence of inciting government actors to inflict even more intense violence against civilians.
Reed M. Wood, Jacob D. Kathman and Stephen E. Gent, ‘Armed Intervention and Civilian Vic-
timization in Intrastate Conflicts’, Journal of Peace Research, Vol.49, No.5, 2012, pp.647–60.
53. Alex Bellamy, ‘Stopping Genocide and Mass Atrocities: The Problem of Regime Change’, Pro-
tection Gateway, Griffiths University, 6 Jul. 2012 (at: http://protectiongateway.com/2012/07/
06/stopping-genocide-and-mass-atrocities-the-problem-of-regime-change).
54. Amanda Porter, ‘The Ethics of Humanitarian Intervention’, PhD thesis, University of Western
Ontario, 2010 (at: http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/70), p.4. See also Martha Finnemore, ‘Constructing
Norms of Humanitarian Intervention’, in Peter J. Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of National
Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, New York: Columbia University Press, 1996,
p.181.
55. As Buchanan and Keohane point out: ‘If there is a gross disparity between an institution’s per-
formance and its self-proclaimed goals or procedures, its legitimacy is seriously called into ques-
tion.’ Buchanan and Keohane (see n.27 above), p.45.
56. Betts (see n.17 above); and Daniel Byman and Taylor Seybolt, ‘Humanitarian Intervention and
Communal Civil Wars: Problems and Alternative Approaches’, Security Studies, Vol.13, No.1,
2003, pp.33–78.
57. Mark Levene, ‘Yesterday’s Victims, Today’s Perpetrators? Considerations on Peoples and Ter-
ritories of the Former Ottoman Empire’, Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.6, No.4, 1994,
pp.444–61.
58. For example, see Michael W. Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace:
United Nations Peace Operations, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006; and Virginia
Page Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work? Shaping Belligerents’ Choices after Civil War, Prince-
ton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008. For a recent survey of this literature, see Anke Hoef-
fler, ‘Can International Interventions Secure the Peace?’, Area Studies Review, Vol.17, No.1,
2014, pp.75–94.
59. ICISS (see n.5 above), p.39.
60. Gary Bass, ‘Jus Post Bellum’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol.32, No.4, 2004, p.399. See also
Brian Orend, ‘Jus Post Bellum: The Perspective of a JustWar Theorist’, Leiden Journal of Inter-
national Law, Vol.20, No.3, 2007, pp.571–91.
61. See Alex J. Bellamy, ‘The Responsibilities of Victory: Jus Post Bellum and the Just War’, Review
of International Studies, Vol.34, No.4, 2008, pp.601– 25; Alexandra Gheciu and Jennifer
Welsh, ‘The Imperative to Rebuild: Assessing the Normative Case for Postconflict Reconstruc-
tion’, Ethics and International Affairs, Vol.23, No.2, 2009, pp.121–46; and Paul Robinson, ‘Is
There a Responsibility to Rebuild?’, in Alice MacLachlan and Allen Speight (eds), Justice,
Responsibility and Reconciliation in the Wake of Conflict, Dordecht: Springer, 2013,
pp.105–16.
62. Carsten Stahn, ‘Responsibility to Protect: Political Rhetoric or Emerging Legal Norm?’, Amer-
ican Journal of International Law, Vol.101, No.1, 2007, p.110.
63. See Binder (see n.34 above).
64. ICISS (see n.5 above), p.37, emphasis added.
65. Pattison (see n.16 above), pp.74–5.
66. Justin Morris, ‘Libya and Syria: R2P and the Spectre of the Swinging Pendulum’, International
Affairs, Vol.89, No.5, 2013, pp.1265– 83.
67. Edward C. Luck, ‘The Responsibility to Protect: The First Decade’, Global Responsibility to
Protect, Vol.3, No.4, 2011, p.394.
68. This argument is related to, but quite different from, the argument that humanitarian interven-
tion creates a ‘moral hazard’ by which interventions unintentionally foster rebellions among
people who believe that they may secure international protection if their rebellions are violently
suppressed. For examples of the latter argument, see Kuperman, ‘The Moral Hazard of Huma-
nitarian Intervention’ (n.17 above); and Dane Rowlands and David Carment, ‘Moral Hazard
and Conflict Intervention’, in Murray Wolfson (ed.), The Political Economy of War and
Peace, London: Kluwer, 1998, pp.267– 86. For a critique of this argument, see Alexander
Bellamy and Paul D. Williams, ‘On the Limits of Moral Hazard: The Responsibility to
Protect, Armed Conflict and Mass Atrocities’, European Journal of International Relations,
Vol.18, No.3, 2012, pp.539–71.
69. The ICISS used this resonant phrase to justify R2P in its 2001 report, broadening it beyond its
traditional association with genocide: ‘There must never again be mass killing or ethnic cleans-
ing’ (see n.5 above), p.70, emphasis added. The UN Secretary-General also traced the origins of
the R2P doctrine back to the Holocaust in ‘Responsibility to Protect: Timely and Decisive
Response’, Report of the Secretary-General, UN doc., A/66/874-S/2012/578, 25 Jul. 2012,
para.4.
70. On the concept of ‘moral authority’ in international relations, see Rodney Bruce Hall, ‘Moral
Authority as a Power Resource’, International Organization, Vol.51, No.4, 1997, pp.591–622.
71. As noted, Libya is the first and only instance, to date, of the Security Council authorizing the use
of ‘military force for human protection purposes against a functioning de jure government’. Wil-
liams and Bellamy (see n.3 above), p.273. R2P has been invoked in other circumstances, but not
in this way. On recent uses of R2P and their differences, see Paul D. Williams, ‘Humanitarian
Military Intervention after the Responsibility to Protect’, in Joyce Apsel and Ernesto Verdeja
(eds), Genocide Matters: Ongoing Issues and Emerging Perspectives, London: Routledge,
2013, pp.150– 1. Libya was not, however, the first case of a military intervention presented
by the interveners as humanitarian. For historical surveys of such interventions, see Brendan
Simms and D.J.B. Trim (eds), Humanitarian Intervention: A History, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2011; and Wheeler (see n.16 above).
72. Allan Cowell, ‘Protests Take Aim at Leader of Libya’, New York Times, 16 Feb. 2011, p.14.
73. Eric Schmidt, ‘U.S. “Gravely Concerned” over Violence in Libya’, New York Times, 20 Feb.
2011, p.8; and David D. Kirkpatrick and Mona El-Naggar, ‘Qaddafi’s Grip Falters as His
Forces Take on Protesters’, New York Times, 21 Feb. 2011 (at: www.nytimes.com/2011/02/
22/world/africa/22libya.html). The non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch
reported that at least 233 Libyans were killed in the first four days of unrest; see Human Rights
Watch, ‘Libya: Governments Should Demand End to Unlawful Killings’, 20 Feb. 2011 (at:
www.hrw.org/news/2011/02/20/libya-governments-should-demand-end-unlawful-killings).
74. Kareem Fahim and David D. Kirkpatrick, ‘Qaddafi’s Grip on the Capital Tightens as Revolt
Grows’, New York Times, 22 Feb. 2011 (at: www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/world/africa/
23libya.html); and David D. Kirkpatrick, ‘In Libya Capital, Long Bread Lines and Barricades’,
New York Times, 26 Feb. 2011, p.1.
75. Williams and Bellamy (see n.3 above), p.276.
76. United Nations, ‘Security Council Press Statement on Libya’, UN doc., SC/10180, 22 Feb. 2011.
77. United Nations, ‘Resolution Adopted by the Human Rights Council: Situation of Human Rights
in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’, UN doc., A/HRC/RES/S-15/1, 3 Mar. 2011, p.2.
78. UN Security Council Resolution 1970, 26 Feb. 2011, p.1. Specifically, the resolution authorized
the use of armed force ‘to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer to the Libyan
Arab Jamahiriya . . . of arms and related materiel of all types, including weapons and ammuni-
tion, military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary equipment, and spare parts for the afore-
mentioned, and technical assistance, training, financial or other assistance, related to military
activities or the provision, maintenance or use of any arms and related materiel, including the
provision of armed mercenary personnel whether or not originating in their territories’ (para.9).
79. David D. Kirkpatrick, ‘Qaddafi Brutalizes Foes, Armed or Defenseless’, New York Times, 5
Mar. 2011, p.1.
80. League of Arab States, ‘The Outcome of the Council of the League of Arab States Meeting at the
Ministerial Level in Its Extraordinary Session on the Implications of the Current Events in Libya
and the Arab Position’, Statement issued in Cairo, 12 Mar. 2011, reproduced in ‘Letter Dated 14
March 2011 from the Permanent Observer of the League of Arab States to the United Nations
Addressed to the President of the Security Council’, UN doc., S/2011/137, 15 Mar. 2011, p.2.
81. Kareem Shaheen, ‘GCC Wants No-Fly Zone over Libya’, The Nation (United Arab Emirates), 8
Mar. 2011 (at: www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/politics/gcc-wants-no-fly-zone-over-libya);
and ‘Ihsanoglu Support No-Fly Decision at OIC Meeting on Libya, Calls for an Islamic Huma-
nitarian Programme In and Outside Libya’, Organization of Islamic Conference, 8 Mar. 2011
(at: www.oic-oci.org/oicv2/topic/?t_id=5031&ref=2111&lan=en&x_key=libya).
82. Quoted in Maria Golovnina and Patrick Worsnip, ‘U.N. Okays Military Action on Libya’,
Reuters, 17 Mar. 2011 (at: www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/17/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20
110317).
83. Quoted in Maria Golovnina and Michael Georgy, ‘Western Powers Strike Libya; Arab League
has Doubts’, Reuters, 20 Mar. 2011 (at: www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/20/us-libya-
idUSTRE7270JP20110320).
84. Quoted in Lamine Chikhi, ‘Italy’s Berlusconi Exposes NATO Rifts over Libya’, Reuters, 7 Jul.
2011 (at: www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/07/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110707).
85. ‘Interview with Lt-Gen. Charles Bouchard’, CTV News (Canada), Question Period, 23 Oct.
2011, transcript, Factiva database.
86. Jonathan Eyal, ‘The Responsibility to Protect: A Chance Missed’, in Adrian Johnson and Saqeb
Mueen (eds), Short War, Long Shadow: The Political and Military Legacies of the 2011 Libya
Campaign, London: Royal United Services Institute, p.56.
87. Ben Berry, ‘Libya’s Lessons’, Survival, Vol.53, No.5, 2011, p.5.
88. As noted above, Resolution 1970 established a sweeping arms embargo on Libya which prohib-
ited the transfer of ‘arms and related materiel of all types, including weapons and ammunition’
(para.9) and Resolution 1973 reaffirmed the embargo and insisted on its ‘strict implementation’
(para.13).
89. Inti Landauro and David Gauthier-Villars, ‘France Says It Armed Opposition in Libya’, Wall
Street Journal, 30 Jun. 2011 (at: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230
3763404576416193057446016); and Philippe Gelie, ‘La France a parachuté des armes aux
rebelles libyens’, Le Figaro, 28 Jun. 2011 (at: www.lefigaro.fr/international/2011/06/28/0100
3-20110628ARTFIG00704-la-france-a-parachute-des-armes-aux-rebelles-libyens.php).
90. Sam Dagher and Charles Levinson, ‘Tiny Kingdom’s Huge Role in Libya Draws Concern’, Wall
Street Journal, 17 Oct. 2011 (at: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405297020400
2304576627000922764650).
91. Ian Black, ‘Qatar Admits Sending Hundreds of Troops to Support Libya Rebels’, Guardian, 26
Oct. 2011 (at: www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/26/qatar-troops-libya-rebels-support).
92. Security Council Resolution 1973 (see n.3 above), para.4.
93. NATO, for its part, insisted that there were ‘no NATO troops’ on the ground in Libya, but this
formulation did not preclude the possibility that individual NATO members, or non-NATO
participants in Operation Unified Protector, may have deployed national forces of their own
accord and under national command.
94. NATO subsequently issued a statement that it ‘did not know that Qaddafi was in the convoy’ at
the time of the strike. See ‘NATO and Libya: Operational Media Update for October 20’, NATO,
21 Oct. 2011 (at: www.nato.int/nato_static/assets/pdf/pdf_2011_10/20111021_111021-oup-
update.pdf).
95. Harriet Sherwood and Chris McGreal, ‘Libya: Gaddafi Has Accepted Roadmap to Peace, Says
Zuma’, Guardian, 11 Apr. 2011 (at: www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/10/libya-african-
union-gaddafi0-rebels-peace-talks).
96. Alex de Waal, ‘African Roles in the Libyan Conflict of 2011’, International Affairs, Vol.89,
No.2, 2013, pp.374–5.
97. The African Union’s proposal, which was the only plan for a negotiated settlement, stated that
the ‘international community’ would have had the responsibility to deploy ‘a sizeable peace-
keeping force’ including ‘monitors to verify compliance with the suspension of hostilities’. See
African Union, ‘Proposals to the Libyan parties for a framework agreement on a political sol-
ution to the crisis in Libya’, Letter dated 22 Jul. 2011 from the Secretary-General addressed
to the President of the Security Council, annex 2, S/2011/455, para.8.
98. Christopher S. Chivvis, ‘Libya and the Future of Liberal Intervention’, Survival, Vol.56, No.6,
2012–13, p.PPT9.
99. Alan Cowell and Ravi Somaiya, ‘France and Italy Will Also Send Advisers to Libya Rebels’,
New York Times, 20 Apr. 2011 (at: www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/world/africa/21libya.html).
100. David Pugliese, ‘NATO’s Secret War Against Gadhafi’, Montreal Gazette, 21 Feb. 2012, p.A15.
101. Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, ‘Libya’s Pathway to Peace’, International
Herald Tribune, 14 Apr. 2011 (at: www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/opinion/15iht-edlibya15.
html). See also White House, ‘Remarks by the President on the Situation in Libya’, 18 Mar.
2011, White House (at: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/03/18/remarks-president-

situation-libya).
102. Chivvis (see n.98 above), p.PPT7.
103. David Bosco wrote, for example, that NATO’s actions were ‘fairly clearly in excess of Security
Council authority’ under Resolution 1973. See Bosco, ‘Are the Obama Folks Genuine Multilater-
alists?’, Foreign Policy website, 9 Feb. 2012 (at: http://bosco.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/02/
09/are_the_obama_folks_genuine_multilateralists). Seyom Brown and Ronald Neumann (see
n.38 above) offered a similar observation: ‘[I]t is clear that while the US motivation for the inter-
vention was consistent with R2P principles, the means were not’ (emphasis in original).
104. Quoted in ‘South Africa Says NATO Abusing UN Resolution on Libya’, Reuters, 14 Jun. 2011
(at: http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE75D0F720110614). See also the comments
of former South African president Thabo Mbeki, ‘International Law and the Future of
Africa’, Address to the Annual General Meeting of the Law Society of the Northern Provinces,
Sun City, South Africa, 5 Nov. 2011.
105. David Rieff, ‘R2P, R.I.P.’, New York Times, 7 Nov. 2011 (at: www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/
opinion/r2p-rip.html).
106. Richard Falk, ‘Libya after Qaddafi’, The Nation, 14 Nov. 2011 (at: www.thenation.com/article/
164221/libya-after-qaddafi).
107. Tim Dunne and Jess Gifkins, ‘Libya and the State of Intervention’, Australian Journal of Inter-
national Affairs, Vol.65, No.5, 2011, p.516.
108. A UN investigation of NATO’s air campaign found credible evidence of five mistaken attacks that
killed a total of 60 Libyan civilians. United Nations Human Rights Council, ‘Report of the Inter-
national Commission of Inquiry on Libya’, UN doc., A/HRC/19/68, 2 Mar. 2012, p.17. It is worth
noting, however, that NATO reportedly conducted more than 9,700 strike sorties in Libya. ‘Oper-
ation Unified Protector Final Mission Stats’, Fact Sheet, 2 Nov. 2011. Moreover, the confirmed
number of accidental deaths in Libya was lower, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of
total strike sorties, than the number killed in NATO’s 1999 bombing campaign against Serbia,
where Human Rights Watch found 90 incidents causing civilian deaths out of a total of 10,484
strike sorties. See W.J. Fenrick, ‘Targeting and Proportionality during the NATO Bombing Cam-
paign Against Yugoslavia’, European Journal of International Law, Vol.12, No.3, 2001, pp.489–
502; and Human Rights Watch, ‘Civilian Deaths in the NATO Air Campaign’, Feb. 2000 (at:
www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2000/nato/Natbm200.htm).
109. Linda Calvert, ‘Losing the War of Words on Libya’, New York Times, 15 Jun. 2011 (at: www.
nytimes.com/2011/06/16/opinion/16iht-edcalvert16.html).
110. Ian Traynor, ‘Arab League Chief Admits Second Thoughts about Libya Air Strikes’, Guardian, 21
Jun. 2011 (at: www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jun/21/arab-league-chief-libya-air-strikes).
111. Nick Carey, ‘Libya Civilian Deaths Sap NATO Credibility – Italy’, Reuters, 20 Jun. 2011 (at:
http://af.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idAFJOE75J0EG20110620).
112. Josef Joffe, ‘The Libyan War Was a Success. But It Won’t Be a Model for Other Wars’, The New
Republic, 24 Aug. 2011 (at: www.newrepublic.com/article/94105/joffe-libya-NATO-obama-
france).
113. Graeme Smith, ‘Atrocities Raise Concern about Libyan Rebels’ Ability to Control Country’,
Globe and Mail (Toronto), 28 Aug. 2011 (at: www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/
atrocities-raise-concerns-about-libyan-rebels-ability-to-control-country/article592350).
114. Human Rights Watch, ‘Libya: Apparent Execution of 53 Gaddafi Supporters’, 24 Oct. 2011 (at:
www.hrw.org/news/2011/10/24/libya-apparent-execution-53-gaddafi-supporters).
115. Amitai Etzioni, ‘Unintended Consequences: War Crimes in Libya’, Commonweal, 13 Jan. 2012,
p.9.
116. ‘Gaddafi’s Death May Be War Crime: ICC Prosecutor’, Reuters, 16 Dec. 2011 (at: www.reuters.
com/article/2011/12/16/us-libya-icc-idUSTRE7BF08820111216); Amnesty International,
‘Libya Urged to Investigate whether al-Gaddafi Death Was a War Crime’, 21 Oct. 2001 (at:
www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/libya-urged-investigate-whether-al-gaddafi-death-
was-war-crime-2011-10-21); and Human Rights Watch, ‘Death of a Dictator: Bloody Ven-
geance in Sirte’, Oct. 2012 (at: www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/libya1012webwcover_
0_0.pdf).
117. International Crisis Group, ‘Trial by Error: Justice in Post-Qadhafi Libya’, Middle East/North
Africa Report no.140, 17 Apr. 2013, International Crisis Group, Brussels.
118. Amnesty International, ‘Libya: Rule of Law or Rule of Militias’, Jul. 2012 (at: www.amnesty.
org/en/library/info/MDE19/012/2012).
119. Karim Mezran and Jason Pack, ‘Libyan Stability at Risk’, Foreign Policy website, 2 May 2013
(at: http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/05/02/libyan_stability_at_risk). See also Ethan
Chorin, ‘NATO’s Libya Intervention and the Continued Case for a “Responsibility to
Rebuild”’, Boston University International law Journal, Vol.31, No.2, 2013, pp.365–86.
120. Quoted in Susana Mas, ‘NATO’s Canadian Commander in Libya “Disappointed” with Lack of
Progress’, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 29 Jul. 2014 (at: www.cbc.ca/news/politics/
nato-s-canadian-commander-in-libya-disappointed-with-lack-of-progress-1.2721944).
121. Ian Black, ‘West Overlooked Risk of Libya Weapons Reaching Mali, Says Expert’, Guardian,
21 Jan. 2013 (at: www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/21/west-libya-weapons-mali).
122. Quoted in ‘UN: Libyan Weapons Spreading’, Associated Press, 10 Apr. 2013 (at: www.politico.
com/story/2013/04/un-libyan-weapons-all-over-now-89846.html).
123. Owen Jones, ‘The War in Libya Was Seen as a Success, Now Here We Are Engaging with the
Blowback in Mali’, Independent, 13 Jan. 2013 (at: www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/
the-war-in-libya-was-seen-as-a-success-now-here-we-are-engaging-with-the-blowback-in-mali-
8449588.html).
124. Obama et al. (see n.101 above).
125. Gareth Evans, Ramesh Thakur and Robert Pape, ‘Correspondence: Humanitarian Intervention
and the Responsibility to Protect’, International Security, Vol.37, No.4, 2013, p.205.
126. Ivo H. Daalder and James G. Stavridis, ‘NATO’s Victory in Libya: The Right Way to Run an
Intervention’, Foreign Affairs, Vol.91, No.2, 2012, pp.2–7, 3.
127. Alan J. Kuperman, ‘A Model Humanitarian Intervention? Reassessing NATO’s Libya Cam-
paign?’, International Security, Vol.38, No.1, 2013, pp.105–36.
128. As the UN’s former emergency relief coordinator wrote in August 2013, ‘the jury is still out on
whether overall it saved civilian lives, during the conflict and since’. John Holmes, ‘Does the
UN’s Responsibility to Protect Necessitate an Intervention in Syria?’, Guardian, 28 Aug. 2013
(at: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/syria-intervention-un-responsibility-to-
protect).
129. Quoted in Sudarsan Raghavan, ‘Libyans Brace for Gaddafi Offensive in Rebel Stronghold of
Benghazi’, Washington Post, 18 Mar. 2011 (at: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2011/03/17/AR2011031704479.html).
130. Nick Meo, ‘Libya Protests: 140 “Massacred” as Gaddafi Sends in Snipers to Crush Dissent’, Tel-
egraph, 20 Feb. 2011 (at: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/
8335934/Libya-protests-140-massacred-as-Gaddafi-sends-in-snipers-to-crush-dissent.html);
and David D. Kirkpatrick and Mona El-Naggar (see n.73 above).
131. Chris McGreal, ‘Libya Rebels Face Last Stand as Gaddafi Forces Zero in on Benghazi’, Guar-
dian, 15 Mar. 2011 (at: www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/15/libya-rebels-last-stand-
benghazi).
132. Alex de Waal, ‘The African Union and the Libya Conflict of 2011’, Reinventing Peace blog, 19
Dec. 2012 (at: http://sites.tufts.edu/reinventingpeace/2012/12/19/the-african-union-and-the-
libya-conflict-of-2011).
133. Transcript of UN Security Council meeting on 25 Jun. 2012, UN doc., S/PV.6790, p.3.
134. Gareth Evans, ‘Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes: The Responsibility to Protect Balance Sheet after
Libya’, Second Renate Kamener Oration, Leo Baeck Centre, Melbourne, Australia, 31 Jul. 2011
(at: www.gevans.org/speeches/speech443.html)
135. Quoted in Evan Harris, ‘Clinton Cites Rwanda, Bosnia in Rationale for Libya Intervention’,
ABC News website, 27 Mar. 2011 (at: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/03/clinton-
cites-rwanda-bosnia-in-rationale-for-libya-intervention).
136. Ibid.
137. Quoted in Laura Rozen, ‘Averting “Srebrenica on Steroids”: White House Defends Libya Oper-
ations’, Yahoo News, 23 Mar. 2011 (at: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/averting-
srebrenica-steroids-white-house-defends-libya-operations-20110323-120730-415.html).
138. Ibid.
139. White House (see n.101 above).
140. In Feb. 2012, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay told the General Assem-
bly: ‘According to credible accounts, the Syrian army has shelled densely populated neighbour-
hoods of Homs in what appears to be an indiscriminate attack on civilian areas.’ Quoted in
‘Human Rights Chief Urges General Assembly to Act Now to Protect Syrians’, UN News
Centre, 13 Feb. 2012 (at: www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=41216).
141. Typical of these statements was this one by Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign
policy chief: ‘I condemn in the strongest terms these acts perpetrated by the Syrian regime
against its own civilians.’ Quoted in Damien Pearse, ‘Syria “Relaunches” Assault on Homs’,
Guardian, 11 Feb. 2012 (at: www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/11/syria-relaunches-
assault-homs).
142. United Nations, ‘The UN Secretary-General’s Special Advisers on the Prevention of Genocide,
Francis Deng, and on the Responsibility to Protect, Edward Luck, Urge Immediate Action to
End Violence in Syria’, press release, 10 Feb. 2012 (at: www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/
adviser/pdf/Statement%20on%20Syria%2010%20Feb%202012%20-%20ENGLISH.pdf).
143. See the comments by Cui Tiankai, China’s Vice Foreign Minister, quoted in Jaime A. FlorCruz,
‘Why China Didn’t Back UN Plan for Syria’, CNN website, 9 Feb. 2012 (at: http://articles.cnn.
com/2012-02-09/asia/world_asia_syria-china-florcruz_1_xi-jinping-global-times-cui-tiankai).
See also the comments by Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov: ‘The international commu-
nity unfortunately did take sides in Libya and we would never allow the Security Council to
authorise [in Syria] anything similar to what happened in Libya.’ Interview with ABC (Austra-
lia) television network, 31 Jan. 2012 (at: www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3420041.
htm).
144. Walter Russell Mead, ‘The Wilsonian World Order Has Once Again Been Postponed’, The
American Interest website, 5 Oct. 2011 (at: http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/
10/05/the-wilsonian-world-order-has-once-again-been-postponed). See also Stephen M. Walt,
‘Will Victory in Libya Cause Defeat in Syria?’, Foreign Policy website, 6 Feb. 2012 (at:
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/02/06/the_libyan_precedent).
145. Daniel Triesman, ‘Why Russia Protects Syria’s Assad’, CNN website, 3 Feb. 2012 (at: http://
edition.cnn.com/2012/02/02/opinion/treisman-russia-syria); and Julian Borger, ‘Syria Crisis
Widens Faultlines at Divided UN’, Guardian, 24 Sept. 2012 (at: www.theguardian.com/
world/2012/sep/24/syria-widens-faultlines-divided-un). See also Alexander Bellamy, ‘From
Tripoli to Damascus? Lesson Learning and the Implementation of the Responsibility to
Protect’, International Politics, Vol.51, No.1, 2014, pp.23–44.
146. Elisabeth Bumiller, ‘Military Points to Risks of a Syrian Intervention’, New York Times, 11
Mar. 2012 (at: www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/world/middleeast/us-syria-intervention-would-
be-risky-pentagon-officials-say.html).
147. Nick Hopkins, ‘Cameron’s Urge “to Do Something” in Syria Resisted by Defence Staff’, Guar-
dian, 11 Dec. 2012 (at: www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/dec/11/syria-british-military-opposes-
role).
148. Marc Lynch, ‘No Military Option in Syria’, Foreign Policy website, 17 Jan. 2012 (at: http://
lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/01/17/no_military_options_in_syria). See also James
Traub, ‘The Least Bad Option’, Foreign Policy website, 30 Mar. 2012 (at: www.
foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/30/the_least_bad_option).
149. Quoted in Franklin Foer and Chris Hughes, ‘Barack Obama Is Not Pleased’, The New Republic,
27 Jan. 2013 (at: www.newrepublic.com/article/112190/obama-interview-2013-sit-down-
president).
150. Steven Erlanger, ‘Syrian Conflict Poses the Risk of Wider Strife’, New York Times, 25 Feb. 2012
(at: www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/world/middleeast/syrian-conflict-poses-risk-of-regional-strife.
html).
151. Elliot Abrams, ‘R2P, R.I.P.’, Pressure Points blog, Council on Foreign Relations, 8 Mar. 2012
(at: http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2012/03/08/r2p-r-i-p). See also Charles Krauthammer, ‘While
Syria Burns’, Washington Post, 27 Apr. 2012 (at: www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/while-
syria-burns/2012/04/26/gIQAQUC0jT_story.html).
152. ‘“Responsibility to Protect” Fails Syria Reality Test’, unsigned editorial, The National (United
Arab Emirates), 26 Sept. 2012 (at: www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/editorial/
responsibility-to-protect-fails-syria-reality-test).
153. J.L. Granatstein, ‘Help Isn’t Coming for Syrian Opposition’, Ottawa Citizen, 18 Mar. 2012,
p.A9.
154. Michael Gerson, ‘Turning Our Backs on Syrian Atrocities’, Washington Post, 31 Jul. 2014 (at:
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-turning-our-backs-on-syrian-atrocities/
2014/07/31/3668acd2-1816-11e4-85b6-c1451e622637_story.html).
155. Robert Fowler, ‘Mali Feels the Effects of NATO’s Libya Mission’, Ottawa Citizen, 25 Mar.
2012, p.A11.
156. Sarah Sewall, Dwight Raymond and Sally Chin, Mass Atrocity Response Operations: A Military
Planning Handbook, Boston, MA: Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy
School, 2010, p.13.
157. Government of Brazil (see n.26 above).
158. Brazil abstained in the Security Council vote on the resolution.
159. Thorsten Benner, ‘Brazil as a Norm Entrepreneur: The “Responsibility While Protecting”
Initiative’, Working Paper, GPPi, Berlin, Mar. 2013, p.4.
160. Government of Brazil (see n.26 above), p.4.
161. Ibid.
162. Ibid.
163. Ibid., p.4.
164. Evans (see n.4 above).
165. ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict’, UN doc., S/
2012/376, 22 May 2012, para.20.
166. Pape (see n.17 above).
167. Ibid., pp.42 and 51.
168. Ibid., p.43.
169. Ibid., pp.53–4.
170. Ibid., p.53.
171. Zenko (see n.27 above), p.5.
172. Pape (see n.17 above), p.53.
173. Ibid., pp.59–61. Pape’s discussion of policy options in this section is cursory. Moreover, he
appears to underestimate the severity of the end-state problem, arguing that as long as a huma-
nitarian intervention stays focused on its ‘primary mission – saving lives threatened by local
security forces’, it need not ‘become trapped in open-ended chaos’ (p.56). This statement over-
looks the essence of the end-state problem: that terminating a mission will often involve expand-
ing the de facto mandate of an operation beyond its initial ‘primary mission’.
174. US Department of Defence, ‘Peace Operations’, Joint Publication 3-07.3, 1 Aug. 2012 (at: www.
fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/jp3-07-3.pdf). The document defines ‘mass atrocity’ as ‘widespread and
often systematic acts of violence against civilians by state or non-state armed groups, including
killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, or deliberately inflicting conditions of life that
cause seriously bodily or mental harm’.
175. Sewall et al. (see n.156 above). Dwight Raymond, one of the co-authors of this document and a
participant in the drafting of the field manual appendix, confirmed in an email communication
on 11 Jun. 2013 that the appendix is ‘basically an abbreviated version’ of the MARO
Handbook.
176. See Alison Giffen, ‘Addressing the Doctrinal Deficit: Developing Guidance to Prevent and
Respond to Widespread or Systematic Attacks Against Civilians’, Workshop Report, Washing-
ton, DC: Stimson Centre, spring 2010.
177. US Department of Defence (see n.174 above). All of the quotations in this paragraph are from
this source.
178. On the other hand, the US counterinsurgency field manual offers extensive reflections on the
nature of insurgencies and the foundations of counterinsurgency. See US Army and US
Marine Corps, Counterinsurgency Field Manual, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press,
2007.
179. Evans (see n.26 above).
180. Ibid., pp.25 and 27.
181. Ibid., p.33.
182. Ibid., pp.33–8.
183. Ibid., p.18.
184. Ibid., p.27.
185. Ibid., p.28.
186. For a compendium of national statements made in the General Assembly’s Informal Interactive
Dialogue on the Responsibility to Protect, see www.globalr2p.org. The representative from
Estonia captured the tenor of this debate: ‘[T]here is a remarkable degree of acceptance to
the principle of R2P. The discussion we are having is not on the principle as such, but on
common principles of its implementation, i.e. how to prevent and react to R2P crimes.’ See
‘Statement by H.E. Mr. Margus Kolga, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Estonia
to the United Nations’, 5 Sep. 2012. On the relatively frequent invocations of R2P in the Secur-
ity Council since the Libya operation, see Bellamy (see n.145 above), pp.39– 40.

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International Peacekeeping

ISSN: 1353-3312 (Print) 1743-906X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/finp20

The ‘Responsibility to Protect’ and the Structural

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13533312.2014.963322

Published online: 10 Oct 2014.

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International Peacekeeping, Vol.21, No.5, 2014, pp.569–603

The Structural Problems of Preventive Humanitarian Intervention

The Mixed Motives Problem

The Counterfactual Problem

The Conspicuous Harm Problem

The End-State Problem

The Inconsistency Problem

The Libya Intervention of 2011 and Its Aftermath

Crisis and Response

admitted to air-dropping light weapons and ammunition to rebels in the moun-

Structural Problems Exposed

Given this degree of uncertainty, was the decision to intervene a responsible

Can the Problems Be Fixed?

Brazil’s ‘Responsibility While Protecting’ Proposal

Robert Pape’s ‘Pragmatic Standard of Humanitarian Intervention’

Military Planning for ‘Mass Atrocity Response Operations’

Gareth Evans: ‘Rebuild the R2P Consensus’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

2011, White House (at: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/03/18/remarks-president-

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