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Global Society

ISSN: 1360-0826 (Print) 1469-798X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cgsj20

International Responsibility as Solidarity: The


Impact of the World Summit Negotiations on the
R2P Trajectory
C.S.R. Murthy & Gerrit Kurtz
To cite this article: C.S.R. Murthy & Gerrit Kurtz (2016) International Responsibility as
Solidarity: The Impact of the World Summit Negotiations on the R2P Trajectory, Global Society,
30:1, 38-53, DOI: 10.1080/13600826.2015.1094451
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2015.1094451

2015 The Author(s). Published by Taylor &


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Date: 10 May 2016, At: 13:13

Global Society, 2016


Vol. 30, No. 1, 3853, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2015.1094451

International Responsibility as Solidarity: The Impact of


the World Summit Negotiations on the R2P Trajectory

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C.S.R. MURTHY and GERRIT KURTZ

The 2005 World Summits endorsement of a responsibility to protect people from atrocity
crimes, widely hailed as a landmark agreement, became possible through a discursive shift
in the negotiations leading up to the summit, where a normative approach of international
solidarity started to replace bitter debates about the legitimacy of military intervention.
This approach identied the lack of sufcient state capacities to adequately deal with atrocity crimes as a core problem, with capacity building and international assistance as solutions. Consequently, the outcome document was most inuential in these areas,
enabling policy entrepreneurs to further institutionalise early warning in the UN Secretariat, frame international disputes in more sovereignty-friendly and thus relatively
constructive terms, and t with a broader trend towards ever more robust peace operations with the priority mandate to protect civilians. This means R2P remains largely
tied to non-state violence, however, leaving unresolved the perennial question of international actions concerning repressive states.

Introduction
Proponents of the responsibility to protect (R2P) populations from mass atrocities
have hailed the concepts collective endorsement at the 2005 World Summit, a gathering of heads of state and government for UN reform, as a major achievement1
and a watershed in terms of the normative evolution of this principle.2 This was
in contrast to a sense of disappointment among many observers and participants
regarding the overall outcome of the summit.3 On closer inspection, though, the
joy of many R2P proponents was limited, as what emerged in the end was

1. Gareth Evans, "From Humanitarian Intervention to the Responsibility to Protect", Wisconsin International Law Journal, Vol. 24, No. 3 (2006), pp. 703713, p. 714.
2. Mnica Serrano, "The Responsibility to Protect and Its Critics: Explaining the Consensus", Global
Responsibility to Protect, Vol. 3, No. 4 (2011), pp. 425437, p. 428.
3. Cf. Nicolas Wheeler, "A Victory for Common Humanity? The Responsibility to Protect after the 2005
World Summit", Paper presented at conference on The UN at Sixty: Celebration or Wake?, University
of Toronto, 67 October 2005; The Economist, "Hardly Radical, But Its a Start", 15 September 2005, available: <http://www.economist.com/node/4399889/> (accessed 20 December 2013).
2015 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits
non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

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International Responsibility as Solidarity

39

merely R2P lite4 on account of its failure to sufciently address the fundamental
problem of political will [ and] what should happen if the Security Council is
unable to agree in cases where particular states are seeking a mandate to prevent
or stop a humanitarian emergency.5 It was precisely such formulation in the
World Summit outcome document, however, that enabled the relative success of
the R2P concept at the United Nations. The fact is that the outcome document
was the rst formally and universally endorsed document on a comprehensive
international role for the protection of populations beyond existing state obligations. As such, it provided an important impetus for a more constructive
debate among UN member states regarding such a role in practice and an opportunity for further policy entrepreneurship.
This became possible, as this article argues, because of a discursive shift in the
meaning of R2P in the negotiations leading up to the World Summit. Whereas
the debate had previously focused on the legitimacy of military intervention and
sovereignty as responsibility, it was now framed in terms of international assistance for, and solidarity with, those states that faced non-state violence. With the
result, the controversial question of dealing with state perpetrators and intervention without consent was largely marginalised through qualifying language and
basically left to be decided by the Security Council in future cases.
By discursive shift, we refer to the changes in the meaning attached to R2P in the
international discourse on protecting people from mass atrocity crimes. This builds
on the understanding of norms as discursive processes whose meaning is created in
their practical use, inuenced by the ongoing contestation of the denition of R2P
and the changing environment of negotiation venues and power structures in the
international system.6 While R2P historically emerged out of the controversy
about so-called humanitarian interventions and the response to genocide and
other mass atrocity crimes committed or abetted by the state, it came to be overwhelmingly understood as assistance for, and solidarity with, states during the
negotiations on the World Summit outcome document. As a consequence, the
issue of state violence became marginalised in the operationalisation of R2P,
which focused largely on measures consistent with state consent, including
robust peacekeeping operations.
The debate about protection and intervention was the result of two broad trends
that had existed for about a decade before the 2005 summit. First, the failure of the
UN membership to prevent and adequately respond to the genocide and ethnic
cleansing in Rwanda and Bosnia in the mid-1990s had sparked considerable soulsearching. There was a broad consensus at the UN that the international community
should do its utmost to prevent such atrocities from re-occurring. Second, Western
interventions in Kosovo and most notoriously in Iraq had polarised the debate about
the use of force. They also heightened concerns among many states, particularly
from the Global South, that the language of responsible sovereignty associated
with the normative commitment to prevent mass atrocities was open to abuse in
the service of regime change. In a world where the United States was seen as the
standard bearer of international responsibility, the Iraq intervention in the name
4. Thomas G. Weiss, Humanitarian Intervention (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2007), p. 117.
5. Wheeler, op. cit., p. 9.
6. Mona Lena Krook and Jacqui True, Rethinking the Life Cycles of International Norms. The United
Nations and the Global Promotion of Gender Equality, European Journal of International Relations, Vol.
18, No. 1 (2012), pp. 103127; Antje Weiner, A Theory of Contestation (Heidelberg: Springer, 2014).

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C.S.R. Murthy and Gerrit Kurtz

of saving the Iraqi people exposed not only what many in the Global South (and
beyond) saw as US hypocrisy about R2P but also the urgent need to clarify who
should decide what that kind of responsibility involved. For the UN, these two competing trends resulted in a deep crisis in the early 2000s. The continuing unilateral
interventions risked undermining the collective security system in the long run.
The broad agreement by the UN membership on R2P at the World Summit and
more so today rests on the meaning of sovereignty that it entails: instead of moving
to what Hurrell calls coercive solidarism, the R2P discourse afrmed a consensual solidarism7 associated with a traditional understanding of international law
created by equal sovereigns. Instead of something that needed to be replaced or
substituted by the international community, sovereignty became (again) something
to be reinforced and supported. Crucially, the aim of improving the protection of
people from mass atrocity crimes remained the same, particularly visible in new
mandates for robust peace operations with the priority to protect civilians.
In analysing and outlining the discursive shift to international solidarity, this study
builds on existing explanations of how and why the R2P paragraphs in the outcome
document came about, pointing to the inputs from crucial negotiation groups, the
multilateral, multi-issue negotiation framework, a committed UN leadership and
the groundwork laid by the high-level panel report.8In contrast to studies that focus
on the importance of the World Summit for international law9 or the operationalisation of protection in such notable crises as Darfur,10 this contribution takes a more
sociological approach and shows how the discursive shift towards international solidarity has, in particular, made it possible to frame ever more robust peace operations
involving the protection of civilians as instances of R2P implementation. In that
regard, the outcome document provided an opportunity structure for further policy
entrepreneurship from states, civil society and the UN Secretary-General.
The article proceeds in two steps. The rst section explains how the issues disputed in the negotiations leading to the endorsement of R2P at the World
Summit were a result of the specic political situation prevailing at that time
(macro-level structures) as well as the logic of the negotiation dynamics themselves
(micro-level practices). The second section traces how the elements of the agreed
formulation have impacted subsequent debates on R2P. The nal formulation provided opportunity structures for further policy entrepreneurship, and promoted a
consensual solidarist framing for the practice of robust peacekeeping. In conclusion, we argue that a consensual solidarist understanding of R2P, as established
by the World Summit, ts well with predominant normative perspectives and
therefore continues to provide the most promising avenue for global action on
norms of protection.
7. Andrew Hurrell, On Global Order: Power, Values, and the Constitution of International Society (Oxford/
New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 6365.
8. Alex J. Bellamy, The Responsibility to Protect (Cambridge, UK: Polity Books, 2009); Marc Pollentine,
"Constructing the Responsibility to Protect", PhD thesis, Cardiff University, 2012; Katharina P. Coleman,
"Locating Norm Diplomacy: Venue Change in International Norm Negotiations", European Journal of
International Relations, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2013), pp. 163186.
9. Diana Amnus, Responsibility to Protect: Emerging Rules on Humanitarian Intervention?, Global
Society, Vol. 26, No. 2 (2012), pp. 241276.
10. Christina Gabriela Badescu and Linnea Bergholm, The Responsibility to Protect and the Conict
in Darfur: The Big Let-Down, Security Dialogue, Vol. 40, No. 4 (2009), pp. 287309; Alex J. Bellamy,
Responsibility to Protect or Trojan Horse? The Crisis in Darfur and Humanitarian Intervention after
Iraq, Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2005), pp. 3154.

International Responsibility as Solidarity

41

The research in this article draws from a variety of sources: nearly all available
statements by relevant actors around the World Summit in the UN General Assembly (UNGA), in the Security Council (UNSC) and in informal negotiations, press
releases and reports. The authors also reviewed published scholarly works and conducted structured interviews with serving and former ofcials and experts in Berlin,
Delhi and London. Taking an interpretive stance,11 combined with close reading of
the empirical material, helps in highlighting disputed issues, central arguments and
patterns of justication on R2P during the World Summit negotiations.

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In the Shadow of Iraq: Negotiations on R2P in the Run-Up to the World Summit
The concept of a responsibility to protect people from genocide and other mass atrocities seemed stillborn12 after the Canadian-sponsored International Commission
on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) rst proposed it in December 2001.13
In the wake of the strong focus on counterterrorism at the time, the report sparked
little enthusiasm outside the liberal internationalist elite.14 For many states, the
framing of R2Ps scope in very broad terms (large scale loss of life, actual or apprehended) sounded like another attempt by Western powers to justify unilateral interventions, in line with the old idea of humanitarian interventions.15 The Iraq war
started in 2003 and the humanitarian justications for it by UK Prime Minister
Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush sharply heightened apprehension
for many, alienating even some partners such as Germany, Chile and Argentina.16
Consequently, the Canadian government was not able to introduce R2P as an
agenda item at the UNGA or the UNSC.17 At the same time, the humanitarian
crisis in Darfur, where the Sudanese government was sponsoring mass violence
against civilians,18 exposed the policy implications of these divisions.19
R2P was revitalised through the recommendations of the High Level Panel
(HLP),20 set up by Ko Annan to provide recommendations for UN reform. The
11. Cecilia Lynch, Interpreting International Politics (New York: Routledge, 2014).
12. Philipp Rotmann, Gerrit Kurtz and Sarah Brockmeier, "Major Powers and the Contested Evolution
of a Responsibility to Protect: Introduction", Conict, Security & Development, Vol. 14, No. 4 (2014),
pp. 355377.
13. International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, "The Responsibility to Protect"
(Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2001). For some of the ambiguities in the ICISS
formulation, see Jennifer Welsh, "Norm Contestation and the Responsibility to Protect", Global Responsibiltiy to Protect, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2013), pp. 365396, p. 371.
14. Rotmann, Kurtz and Brockmeier, op. cit., p. 364.
15. See, for example, Oliver Stuenkel and Marcos Tourinho, "Regulating Intervention: Brazil and the
Responsibility to Protect", Conict, Security & Development, Vol. 14, No. 4 (2014), pp. 379402.
16. Sarah Brockmeier, Gerrit Kurtz and Julian Junk, "Emerging Norm and Rhetorical Tool: Europe and
a Responsibility to Protect", Conict, Security & Development, Vol. 14, No. 4 (2014), pp. 429460, p. 436.
17. While member states mentioned R2P in the thematic debate on protection of civilians in the Security Council, the only time any UN organ discussed R2P as a central item of the debate (albeit informally)
prior to the World Summit was at a retreat of the UNSC under the presidency of Singapore in May 2000.
Pollentine, op. cit., p. 182.
18. Ko A. Annan and Nader Mousavizadeh, Interventions: A Life in War and Peace (New York: Penguin
Press, 2012), pp. 119133.
19. See the contribution by Harry Verhoeven, Ricardo Soares de Oliveira and Madhan Mohan Jaganathan in this issue.
20. High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, "A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility", UN Doc. A/59/565, New York, 2 December 2004.

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C.S.R. Murthy and Gerrit Kurtz

chief architect of R2P in the ICISS report, Gareth Evans, was made part of the panel,
which in its report sought to shift the focus from the right to intervene of any
state to the responsibility of every state to protect people suffering from avoidable catastrophe; and this collective responsibility was exercisable by the Security
Council authorising military intervention as a last resort, in the event of genocide
and other largescale killing, ethnic cleansing or serious violations of international
humanitarian law which sovereign Governments have proved powerless or
unwilling to prevent.21 UN Secretary-General Ko Annan, who had deliberately
nominated Evans to the HLP, quickly followed up with his own reform proposals
for consideration by world leaders who would gather to commemorate the 60th
anniversary of the UN in September 2005. His report recommended that we
must embrace the responsibility to protect, and, when necessary, act on it.22 It
was only because of this advocacy in the two reform reports that R2P became an
agenda item for the negotiations prior to the World Summit in the rst place.
While participating in the negotiations on R2P at the World Summit, member
states fought tough battles based on their normative perspectives which can be
gleaned from the arguments made in the deliberations leading up to the opening
of the summit. These perspectives are a condensed result of the preliminary
content analysis of statements and speeches during the negotiations on the
World Summit outcome document, based on a comparative reading of overall similarities in the main lines of argument, positions and justications provided.23
Putting the individual and international institutions at the centre of politics, a
human security perspective demanded a reliable normative framework for the protection of people from mass atrocities (mostly uttered by Canada, the European Union,
Chile, Argentina, Peru, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and civil society organisations). An exceptionalist perspective, espoused by France, the UK, the US, China
and Russia, singled out the unique responsibilities and privileges of major powers,
in particular the UNSC permanent members, in maintaining the greatest freedom
of action when deciding about interventions. The contrarian, anti-imperialist perspective, represented by such states as Cuba, Venezuela and Belarus, argued that Western
major powers interference was at the bottom of conicts and gross human rights violations. Hence, the R2P concept would enable Western major powers to militarily
intervene to target and punish regimes that stand against their interests. From a
non-aligned perspective, stated by India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Brazil and others, the
principle of state sovereignty was particularly central as it protects weak states
from major power interference; serious human rights violations were often related
to nascent post-colonial state authorities that struggled to effectively rein in armed
actors. Lastly, a regional emancipation perspective on global norms underscored that
these should be implemented according to regional requirements, giving precedence
to the regional level to take care of their affairs, including military interventions in the
respective region (mostly represented by the African Union at the World Summit).
Because of these disparate normative perspectives, the contestation of R2P in
the negotiations was considerable. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) declared
21. Ibid., paras 201 and 203. Italics in original.
22. See Ko Annan, "In Larger Freedom. Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All",
UN Doc. A/59/2005, New York, 21 March 2005, p. 35, para. 132.
23. For further information on the historical context of the normative perspectives and how they can be
categorised around central arguments, see the introduction to this special issue by Gerrit Kurtz and
Philipp Rotmann.

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its rejection [ ] of the so-called right of humanitarian intervention and


identied similarities between the new expression responsibility to protect
and humanitarian intervention.24 The US and the UK rejected any hint of a
legal obligation25 to intervene suggested by new expressions for the international responsibility to protect: any agreement on R2P had to rely as much
as possible on previously agreed language. In this context, the suggestion by
the Pakistani ambassador Munir Akram to always link the words responsibility
to protect to four specic crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity, war
crimes and ethnic cleansing) enabled negotiators to reach an agreement,26
according to UNGA President Jean Ping who orchestrated the negotiations
between early 2005 and the beginning of the high-level summit in September.
These four crimes, which were dened in the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court and mentioned in the Constitutive Act of the African Union,27
were subsequently added to every single mention of responsibility to protect
in the draft document.28
Apart from the scope of the R2P agreement, states discussed the threshold for
international military action, in particular when state authorities are themselves
perpetrating atrocity crimes (unwilling to protect) and are not just lacking
capacities to deal with non-state violence (unable to protect). From the nonaligned as well as Chinas perspective, complete state failure like in Somalia and
Rwanda in the early 1990s would justify intervention and still respect the principles
of state sovereignty and non-intervention by major powers.29 Even Cuba voiced
this perspective after the negotiations when it became clear that some language
on R2P would be included in the outcome document.30 Those states thus contested
the formulation of states being unable or unwilling as suggested by the HLP and
Annan31 and embraced by the human security, regional emancipation and exceptionalist perspectives. Annan and fellow human security advocates argued that
since man-made32 crimes are prompted by the misguided and malevolent pol-

24. Non-Aligned Movement, "Doha Declaration", NAM/2005/SFMM/05, Doha, 13 June 2005.


25. John Bolton, "Letter Sent to UN Member States Conveying US Amendments to the Section on the
Responsibility to Protect of the Draft Outcome Being Prepared for the September 2005 High Level
Event", International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect, 30 August 2005, available: <http://
www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/les/US_Boltonletter_R2P_30Aug05%5B1%5D.pdf> (accessed 14
December 2012); United Kingdom, "Internal FCO E-Mail" (on le with author, 2005).
26. Jean Ping, "Keynote Address by Chairperson of the African Union Commission: The Responsibility
to Protect in Africa", in Jenna Slotin, Castro Wesamba and Teemt Bekele (eds.), Responsibility to Protect
(RtoP) and Genocide Prevention in Africa (New York: International Peace Institute, 2009), p. 12.
27. The Rome Statute does not dene ethnic cleansing as a separate crime, but mentions it in the denitions of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
28. Pollentine, op. cit., p. 340.
29. Madhan Mohan Jaganathan and Gerrit Kurtz, "Singing the Tune of Sovereignty? India and the
Responsibility to Protect", Conict, Security & Development, Vol. 14, No. 4 (2014), pp. 461488, p. 467.
30. See Cubas statement in UN General Assembly, "Meeting Records, Fifty-ninth Session, 118th
Plenary Meeting", UN Doc. A/59/PV.118, New York, 13 September 2005, p. 2.
31. High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, op. cit., para. 203; Annan, op. cit., para. 135.
32. Republic of Korea Permanent Mission to the UN, "Statement at an Informal Meeting of the Plenary
of the United Nations General Assembly", New York, 27 January 2005, available: <http://un.mofa.go.kr/
webmodule/htsboard/template/read/legengreadboard.jsp?typeID=16&boardid=10494&seqno=628923&
c=TITLE&t=&pagenum=51&tableName=TYPE_ENGLEGATIO&pc=&dc=&wc=&lu=&vu=&iu=&du>
(accessed 13 October 2015).

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C.S.R. Murthy and Gerrit Kurtz

icies of Governments towards their own populations,33 it was vital to include the
threshold of governments being unwilling to protect their populations. That was
too close to home for some mostly authoritarian governments faced with domestic
tensions, including China, which opined that governments needed assistance, not
reckless intervention, to deal with situations of internal unrest.34
From Chinas perspective, the issue of the threshold for military action was
similar to the question of criteria for the use of force and the proposal for a
code of conduct not to use veto power when the four crimes were occurring.
In line with exceptionalist views, China maintained that any UNSC decision
would not be a question of any new pre-ordained criteria, thresholds or normative
principles, but a case-by-case decision.35 With regard to the criteria on the use of
force, the US and Russia agreed that the Council needed exibility. On the other
hand, non-aligned countries saw criteria as an automatic trigger mechanism,36
making interventions more likely and therefore highly problematic.
On the proposal of a veto restraint originally proposed by French Foreign
Minister Hubert Vdrine in 2001,37 all other permanent members, including the
UK, remained rmly opposed.38 In a remarkable overlap between nonaligned and human security perspectives, Indias permanent representative
Nirupam Sen made concessions by the P5 on a veto restraint his main demand
in the negotiations. When such a coalition did not come to pass and Western
countries did not want to join his demand, our position really hardened,39 Sen
recalled.
The objections by Nirupam Sen that followed this incident threatened to tear the
existing agreement on R2P apart in the nal hours of the negotiations.40 In the end,
a coalition of human security-inspired norm entrepreneurs in the form of the UN
leadership, Canada and the EU ensured that the R2P section was carried through
to the nal adoption of the outcome document, indeed that there was a nal
outcome document at all. Until the day before the text was supposed to be
adopted, there was no agreed text, not least due to the hundreds of amendments
33. Canada, UN Security Council, "Meeting Records, Sixtieth Year, 5225th Meeting, the Role of the
Security Council in Humanitarian Crises: Challenges, Lessons Learned and the Way Ahead", UN
Doc. S/PV.5225, New York, 12 July 2005, p. 31.
34. China, "Position Paper of the Peoples Republic of China on the United Nations Reforms", 7 June
2005, available <http://www.china-un.org/eng/chinaandun/zzhgg/t199101.htm> (accessed 13 October
2015).
35. Pollentine, op. cit., p. 185.
36. Permanent Mission of Brazil to the UN, "Statement by Ambassador Ronaldo Mota Sardenberg in
the Informal Meeting of the Plenary on the High-Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly of September 2005, New York, 1 August 2005, available: <http://www.un.int/brazil/speech/005d-rms-agnuHuman%20Rights%20and%20the%20Rule%20of%20Law-0108-.html> (accessed 12 December 2012).
Also see Pakistans statement in UN General Assembly, "Meeting Records, Fifty-ninth Session, 86th
Plenary Meeting", UN Doc. A/59/PV.86, New York, 6 April 2005, p. 5.
37. International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, Responsibility to Protect. Research,
Bibliography, Background. Supplementary Volume (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre,
2001), p. 379.
38. When it became part of one draft of the outcome document, the UKs Foreign and Commonwealth
Ofce (FCO) observed in an internal e-mail that they had concerns over new language [ ] on
restraints on the veto. Other P5 will no doubt agree. United Kingdom, "Internal FCO E-mail" (on le
with author, 2005).
39. Interview with Nirupam Sen, New Delhi, 2 March 2014.
40. Jaganathan and Kurtz, op. cit.

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introduced by the US two weeks earlier. In the end, the UN leadership of SecretaryGeneral Ko Annan, his chef de cabinet Mark Malloch Brown and Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Planning Bob Orr, together with the outgoing and incoming presidents of the General Assembly, Jean Ping and Jan Eliasson, removed the
remaining brackets in the outcome document and created a nal text overnight
(drafted by Orr). In the morning they responded to last-minute changes by US
Ambassador John Bolton and others, for example entirely eliminating the section
on international criminal justice.41 At roughly the same time, the Canadians
suggested changing the description of the threshold for military action to reect
non-aligned concerns.42 In a typical diplomatic compromise, the nal text (which
read if national authorities are manifestly failing in their responsibility to protect
their population43) was meant, again, to speak to both the unable and the unwilling clusters of arguments: it sounded more like the former (failing) and required
apparently some sort of evidence (manifestly), while others were able to argue that
deliberate repression was also a sign of failing state authorities.
Since Sens objections led to further push-back from member states, the drafting team
of the outcome document wanted to provide assurance to non-aligned critics. As if the
assertion in the opening paragraph that the international community should, as
appropriate, encourage and help States to exercise this responsibility to protect
populations from genocide and other atrocity crimes (which had been there right
from the beginning of the negotiations) was not sufciently assuring, further change
was made to reect a consensual solidarist understanding of R2P: it was an insertion
regarding the intention to commit ourselves to build and help States build capacity
and assist those which are under stress alongside replacing the recognition of
our shared responsibility with just preparedness to take collective action.44
Member states that had not been involved in the last-minute consultations only
had a few hours to study the nal changes, and only in the English version of the
text.45 The anti-imperialist perspective was marginalised in this process, as the
complaints by Cuba and Venezuela at the adoption of the outcome document
testify46 and as a Western ambassador confessed.47 With heads of state already
arriving in New York for the World Summit, UNGA President Ping rushed the
adoption of the outcome document through, leaving no possibility for statements
or nal changes before the unanimous adoption.48 If you give anyone the chance
to speak, it unravels, a European ambassador had told Ping before.49 The desire to
41. John Bolton, Surrender Is Not an Option (New York: Threshold Editions, 2007), pp. 214215.
42. Adrian Gallagher, "What Constitutes a Manifest Failing? Ambiguous and Inconsistent Terminology and the Responsibility to Protect", International Relations, Vol. 28, No. 4 (2014), pp. 428444.
43. UN General Assembly, "Resolution 60/1. 2005 World Summit Outcome", UN Doc. A/RES/60/1,
New York, 24 October 2005, para. 139
44. Marc Pollentine portrays various changes that came about in the drafting process in boxes 5.3
5.12 (Pollentine, op. cit., pp. 322337).
45. The informal core group meeting where Ping presented the nal draft started at 1.25 PM on 13
September, while the formal plenary meeting of the General Assembly that adopted the text started at
4.50 PM the same day. Bolton, Surrender Is Not an Option, op. cit., p. 215.
46. UN General Assembly, "Meeting Records, Fifty-ninth Session, 118th Plenary Meeting", op. cit.,
pp. 24.
47. Interview with former Western ambassador, June 2013.
48. In the explanation of its vote, Venezuela complained accordingly: There was not even an opportunity to make any sort of proposal or to disagree with any of the content of those 35 voluminous pages.
UN General Assembly, "Meeting Records, Fifty-ninth Session, 118th Plenary Meeting", op. cit., p. 3.
49. Interview with former European ambassador, 3 June 2013.

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C.S.R. Murthy and Gerrit Kurtz

deliver an outcome to the arriving leaders and the sustained advocacy by Canada
and the EU ensured that R2P would be included in the outcome document after
all,50 but, as Mark Malloch Brown said, not because we won the argument.51
Again, the outcome documents language on the respective roles of the UNSC,
regional organisations and the UNGA, notably regarding authorisation of military
action, attests to the need to take on board the preferences of the various normative
perspectives at play. China and Russia strongly afrmed the exclusive role of the
UNSC under the UN Charter and rejected suggestions to bypass or dilute its sole
authority to take military action. From an exceptionalist perspective, those
Western states that had pursued interventions without UNSC approval in
Kosovo as well as in Iraq were driven by a concern that R2P should neither
exclude the need for future interventions nor render the past actions illegal.52
The UKs attempts to insert wherever possible in the sentence describing the
need for Security Council authority over coercive measures had been quickly
rebuffed though.53 Arguing from a regional emancipation perspective, the
African Union states pleaded for permissive language for action by regional organisations against a member state without the UNSCs prior approval which could be
granted after the fact in circumstances requiring urgent action as per the relevant
constitutional provisions.54 Non-aligned countries also questioned the wisdom of
allowing the UNSC sole authority at the expense of the legitimate role of the
UNGA in international peace and security matters as provided under the UN
Charter.55 Indeed, the Assembly, the argument went, could balance out the selective approach of the veto-holding permanent members in the Council.56 Those
states stopped short of arguing, however, that the Assemblys authority could
replace the Councils when it came to authorising military action.
In the nal document, only one long-winding sentence remained that referred to
coercive action without state consent. It was possibly the Indian negotiation strategy in close consultation with the Non-Aligned Movement to put in as many qualiers as possible57 in this section. By declaring that member states would be
prepared to take collective action through the Security Council, in accordance
with the Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case by case basis and in cooperation
with relevant regional organisations as appropriate, should peaceful means be
inadequate and national authorities are failing to protect their populations ,58
the outcome document effectively marginalised the issue by burying it with
50. For more comprehensive accounts of the World Summit negotiations, see Pollentine, op. cit; James
Traub, The Best Intentions: Ko Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power (New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 2006), pp. 359398; Bellamy, The Responsibility to Protect, op. cit., pp. 6697.
51. Interview with Mark Malloch Brown, London, 3 June 2013.
52. Bolton, "Letter Sent to UN Member States ", op. cit. For Canada, too, this was an important concern.
See Pollentine, op. cit., p. 206.
53. Pollentine, op. cit., p. 324.
54. African Union, "The Common African Position on the Proposed Reform of the United Nations:
The Ezulwini Consensus", Ext/EX.CL/2 (VII), Addis Ababa, 78 March 2005, p. 6.
55. Non-Aligned Movement, "Proposed Amendments by the Non-Aligned Movement to the Draft
Outcome Document of the High-Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly", UN Doc. A/59/
HLPM/CRP.l/Rev.2, New York, 1 September 2005.
56. Pakistan, UN Security Council, "Meeting Records, Sixtieth Year, 5319th Meeting, The Protection of
Civilians in Armed Conict (Resumption 1)", UN Doc. S/PV.5319 (Resumption 1), New York, 9 December 2005, p. 14.
57. Interview with Nirupam Sen, New Delhi, 2 March 2014.
58. UN General Assembly, "Resolution 60/1. 2005 World Summit Outcome", op. cit., para. 139.

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International Responsibility as Solidarity

47

qualiers. Thus, the outcome document sidelined the question of interventions


without state consent, leaving it to the Security Council, where interventionsceptic China and Russia possessed a veto, to determine the course of action in a
given situation. At the same time, while the UNSC was supposed to determine
the meaning of timely and decisive action, the outcome document established
a distinctive role for the UNGA to continue case-by-case consideration of the
responsibility to protect [ ] and its implications.59 Some states subsequently
pointed to this clause to avoid an immediate implementation of R2P in the
UNSC. When the EU, led by the UK, tried to introduce a draft resolution in the
UNSC to endorse the World Summit agreement on R2P two months after the
World Summit, Russia, for example, argued that it is clearly premature to
advance that concept in Security Council documents. We all remember well the
complex compromise that was required to reect that issue in the 2005 Summit
Outcome document. In that connectionand the outcome document states this
we need to have a detailed discussion in the General Assembly of the issue of
the responsibility to protect before we can discuss its implementation.60 After
more than half a year of negotiations, the UNSC adopted a resolution simply
endorsing the World Summit outcome documents paragraphs on R2P.61

The World Summits Impact on R2Ps Normative Trajectory


With such sensitive and difcult debates about the meaning of R2P during the
negotiations on the World Summit outcome document, it was only natural that
most member states sought to uphold the 2005 formulation. The understanding
of R2P as consensual solidarism was reinforced through the actions of policy entrepreneurs working on the operationalisation of R2P as well as statements by
member states. For instance, those countries arguing from the non-aligned perspective insisted that the scope of possible trigger events covered by the concept
remained rmly tied to the four core crimes, whereas France attempted to
broaden it to include the mismanagement of natural disasters, in which case the
international community should not wait for government clearance for humanitarian access.62 As India articulated a widely shared sentiment in 2012, R2P cannot be
used to address all social evils, including violations of human rights and humanitarian law. Rather it must be conned to the four identied crimes.63 The Secretary-General too cautioned against attempts to expand R2P to cover other
triggers on the ground that they would undermine the 2005 consensus.64
59. Ibid., para. 139.
60. UN Security Council, "Meeting Records, Sixtieth Year, 5319th Meeting, The Protection of Civilians
in Armed Conict", UN Doc. S/PV.5319, New York, 9 December 2005, p. 19.
61. UN Security Council, "Resolution 1674 (2006)", UN Doc. S/RES/1674 (2006), New York, 28 April
2006. Bellamy called the period that followed the revolt against R2P. Alex J. Bellamy, Global Politics
and the Responsibility to Protect. From Words to Deeds (New York: Routledge, 2011), pp. 2831.
62. See Julian Junks contribution on Myanmar to this special issue.
63. Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations, "Remarks by Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri,
Permanent Representative at an Informal Interactive Dialogue on the Report of the Secretary General on
Responsibility to Protect: Timely and Decisive Action" (New York: UN General Assembly, 5 September
2012).
64. UN Secretary-General, Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: Report of the SecretaryGeneral , UN Doc. A/63/677, New York, 12 January 2009, para. 10(b).

48

C.S.R. Murthy and Gerrit Kurtz

The shift to the consensual solidarist understanding of R2P enabled a constructive debate between member states on the basis of the shared goal to protect populations from mass atrocity crimes. This did not take place overnight, but developed
as a result of the dedicated work of the Special Advisors of the Secretary-General on
R2P and the annual consultations on the Secretary-Generals report as well as the
thematic debates. On the practical side, the consensual solidarist understanding
manifested itself in the broad support among member states for increasingly
robust peace operations.

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Opportunity Structure for Policy Entrepreneurs


The outcome document provided an opportunity structure for human security
inspired policy entrepreneurs, even if they faced uphill battles. This structure
included the continued discussion of R2P by the UNGA, the endorsement of the
mandate of the Secretary-Generals Special Advisor on the Prevention of
Genocide65 (a post Annan had created in 2004), and the demand for member
states to support the development of an early warning capacity by the United
Nations.66
Juan Mendez, the Special Advisor for the Prevention of Genocide, initiated discussions on R2P with the UN Secretariats Executive Committee on Peace and Security
(ECPS) immediately after the adoption of the outcome document. The ECPS established a working group on implications of R2P for the UN system, devising a list of
existing UN activities that could be seen as its implementation. It did not manage,
however, to establish a shared understanding of R2P, or the role of different UN entities in its implementation.67 Here also differences arose between the Ofce for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA) and the Ofce of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). These reected widely held positions in
their respective communities. From a human rights point of view, R2P could act
as a rallying cry and potentially mobilise political will for actions to ensure norm
compliance. For the humanitarian community, R2Ps association with the use of
force by the UNSC made it divisive, and may endanger shrinking humanitarian
access with state authorities and armed groups.68
The establishment of the position of a Special Advisor on R2P by the SecretaryGeneral, and funds for his small ofce, were also a matter of dispute. As the
outcome document had neither specically mandated the Secretary-General to
establish this position nor to draft regular reports for the General Assembly, the
Secretariat stretched the World Summit endorsement to its limits. The group of
non-aligned and post-colonial developing countries which have been keen on safeguarding the role of the UNGA were unhappy that prior consultations were held
only with the Council, not the UNGA.69 This resulted in the holding up of budget65. UN General Assembly, "Resolution 60/1. 2005 World Summit Outcome", op. cit., para. 140.
66. Ibid., para. 138.
67. For this and more details, see 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. 154191, p. 159.
68. Ibid.
69. UN General Assembly, "Fifth Committee Takes Up Financing of Special Political Missions, Procurement", UN Doc. GA/AB/3832, New York, 17 December 2007. Edward Luck, the rst occupant of the
ofce, admitted in an interview that it was a mistake not to have taken the wider membership of the

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International Responsibility as Solidarity

49

ary approval for funds for the ofce for a couple of years. Edward Luck, the rst
holder of this position, saw this optimistically as the Assembly claiming a sense
of ownership over RtoP.70
As his rst duty, Luck undertook the task to spell out the implications of the World
Summit outcome document for the UN and its collective security system, in close
consultation with member states.71 This was not easy, as he was dilating on the
three carefully crafted paragraphs in the World Summit outcome document
without attempting to reopen or renegotiate the 2005 formulationan objective
shared by the US as well as the friends of R2P.72 In the resulting report of the Secretary-General, R2P was reconceptualised into three pillars with no particular
sequencing through a careful reading of the World Summit outcome document.73
The pillarsgovernment responsibility, international assistance and coercive
measureswere already included implicitly in the outcome document, each with progressively more qualifying terms such as as appropriate.74 The report as well as the
rst of the now annual debates in the General Assembly highlighted the solidarist
approach already evident in 2005. It mostly focused on measures short of coercive
action, and stressed the importance of capacity building, assistance and prevention.75
The subsequent reports struck a similar tone, focusing on early warning, the role of
regional and sub-regional arrangements, timely and decisive response, and state
responsibility and prevention. The annual debates also indicate that a solidarist understanding of R2P is becoming part of the mainstream diplomatic vocabulary, thereby
reecting broad support among states and civil society actors.76 For example, speaking
on behalf of the NAM, Egypt referred to the commitment made at the Sharm el-Sheik
summit (2009) for achieving international cooperation based on solidarity among
peoples and Governments in solving international problems of a political, economic,
social, cultural and humanitarian character. Alongside, the evolving human security
perspective was articulated by New Zealand, according to which R2P is all about
nations working, individually and together, to protect people, and it will be most successful and have the greatest impact when it is a collaborative and inclusive exercise. 77
Assembly into condence (Interview, Berlin, 14 June 2013). See also Global Centre on the Responsibility
to Protect, "ACABQ and Fifth Committee Negotiations on the Joint Ofce", GCR2P Report, January 2011,
available: <http://www.globalr2p.org/media/les/report-acabq-and-fth-committee-negotiations.pdf>
(accessed 20 August 2014).
70. Edward C. Luck, "The Responsibility to Protect: The First Decade", Global Responsibility to Protect,
Vol. 3, No. 4 (2011), pp. 387399, p. 392.
71. Cf. Edward Luck, "Building a Norm: The Responsibility to Protect Experience", in Robert I. Rotberg
(ed.), Mass Atrocity Crimes: Preventing Future Outrages (Cambridge, MA/Washington, DC: World Peace
Foundation/Harvard Kennedy School Program on Intrastate Conict/Brookings Institution Press,
2010), pp. 108127.
72. UN Secretary-General, op. cit., p. 4, para. 2; US Mission to the United Nations, "Responsibility to
Protect Debate Concludes: Agenda Item Remains Open for Possible Future Action", Wikileaks, 4
August 2009, available: <http://cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=09USUNNEWYORK744&q=r2p>
(accessed 15 December 2012).
73. Interview with Edward Luck, Berlin, 14 June 2013.
74. Arguing in hindsight, Nirupam Sen, Indias ambassador at the time, framed the two nal paragraphs in this way. Interview, New Delhi, 2 March 2014.
75. UN Secretary-General, op. cit.
76. Welsh, op. cit., p. 378.
77. See UN General Assembly. Meeting Records, Sixty-third Session, 97th Plenary Meeting, Report of
the Secretary-General, UN Doc. A/63/PV.97, New York, 23 July 2009, pp. 6, 25. However, giving a twist
to the solidarity discourse, the representative of Belgium cautioned that in situations where a state is

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C.S.R. Murthy and Gerrit Kurtz

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Robust Peacekeeping as Solidarist Approach to International Military Action


The constructive debate about R2P as consensual international solidarity has been
reected in the subsequent UNSC practice. This is particularly the case in robust
peacekeeping. While holding on to the consent of the host state on all occasions
except with regard to the intervention in Libya in 2011, the practice showed that
this requirement could be interpreted quite broadly.
The outcome document had anchored R2P rmly in the UN Charter, which came
down to the same legal foundation as for robust peacekeeping for protection of
civilians: action under Chapter VII on a case-by-case basis. Peace operations,
however, always take place with the consent of the state. In line with the opposition
to regime change visible before, during and after the World Summit, the outcome
document could thus only address non-state violence. The contestation among
member states about the interpretation of the mandate with regard to Libya,
which had identied the Libyan state authorities as a source of atrocities, ended
up underscoring this cleavage.78 The UNSC practice thus afrms an understanding
of manifest failure as national authorities being unable to protect their populations because of lack of capacities.
Similarly, in his rst report on R2P, the UN Secretary-General clearly highlighted
the relative advantage of consent-based peacekeeping over interventions
without state consent in the context of egregious crimes committed by both state
and non-state: actors:
Non-state actors, as well as States, can commit egregious crimes relating to
the responsibility to protect. When they do, collective international military assistance may be the surest way to support the State in meeting its
obligations relating to the responsibility to protect and, in extreme cases,
to restore its effective sovereignty. At such times, the early, targeted and
restrained use of international military assets and armed forces may be
able to save lives and bring a measure of stability so that diplomacy, domestic political processes, healing and reconciliation can have time and space
to operate. Consent-based peacekeeping, of course, is a United Nations
innovation and strength, whereas the Organization has undertaken more
coercive military operations less frequently and with more mixed results.
The same could be said for regional and subregional organizations.79
As such, the Security Council authorisations for military measures both as peacekeeping operations as well as member state-led missions always relied on government requests, even if the legitimacy of those governments may have been
controversial at times. In Cte dIvoire in March 2011, the government-in-waiting
led by Alassane Outtara and recognised by the United Nationsrequested
that the mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission in the country be strengthened
with regard to the protection of civilians and the prevention of the use of heavy

not prepared to protect its own people against worst crimes, we [i.e. the international community]
must demonstrate solidarity with civilian population. Ibid., p. 18.
78. See the contribution by Sarah Brockmeier, Marcos Tourinho and Oliver Stuenkel in this special
issue.
79. UN Secretary-General, op. cit., p. 18, para. 40.

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International Responsibility as Solidarity

51

weapons.80 When South Sudan became independent in July 2011, the Council
responded to its request to keep a peace operation in place, which is now tasked
with advising and assisting the government in fullling its responsibility to
protect civilians, while it withdrew UN troops from the Republic of Sudan
upon the latters request.81 In March 2013, the Congolese government asked the
Council to establish a Force Intervention Brigade to neutralise armed groups in
the eastern part of the country by resorting to a degree of offensive tactics so far
unseen in peacekeeping operations.82 Similarly, when the Council authorised a
European Union force in the Central African Republic in January 2014, it cited
the agreement of the transitional authorities of the country for that mission.83
These developments suggest that even marginal government cooperation in
robust peace operations with an offensive mandate to protect civilians is still
more acceptable than interventions without any host consent. It therefore provides
a bridge between the non-aligned perspective insisting on strict compliance with
state sovereignty and human security, exceptionalist and regional emancipation
perspectives that have called for military action without the consent of the state
in certain circumstances.

Conclusion
As the above analysis shows, the World Summits agreement and subsequent
impact on R2P can best be understood through the discursive shift that came
with it, from intervention and coercive solidarism to assistance and consensual solidarism. The formulation of R2P in the World Summit agreement reected the shift
to consensual solidarism, but it only became consequential as an opportunity structure for policy entrepreneurs in the UN that spelled out the implications of the formulation in close consultations with member states. Initially, the specic
formulation of R2P in the outcome document was an outcome of the idiosyncratic
negotiation dynamics, where R2P only remained in the nal text because of the
accommodation of non-aligned concerns and the strong engagement from the
R2P promotorsmainly Canada, the EU and the UN leadership. It took concerted
actions later by those actors as well as the UN Secretary-Generals Special Advisors
to socialise member states into a consensual solidarist understanding of R2P. In
doing so, the evolution of R2P since the World Summit has largely conrmed
this understanding, reecting the combination of individual agency and changing
power structures in the international system, where it became increasingly difcult
for exceptionalist perspectives and coercive solidarism more largely to nd a
hearing. The controversy following the Libya intervention in 2011 is a case in
point. The World Summit made it possible to continue developing and institutionalising the concept of R2P without having to address the hugely controversial issue
of Security Council deadlock and interventions without state consent. Peace
80. UN Security Council, "Meeting Records, Sixty-sixth Year, 6508th Meeting. The Situation in Cte
dIvoire", UN Doc. S/PV.6508, New York, 30 March 2011, p. 7.
81. UN Security Council, "Resolution 1996 (2011)", UN Doc. S/RES/1996 (2011), New York, 8 July 2011.
82. UN Security Council, "Meeting Records, Sixty-eighth Year, 6943rd Meeting. The Situation in the
Democratic Republic of Congo", UN Doc. S/PV.6943, New York, 28 March 2013, pp. 1011.
83. UN Security Council, "Resolution 2134 (2014)", UN Doc. S/RES/2134 (2014), New York, 28 January
2014.

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52

C.S.R. Murthy and Gerrit Kurtz

operations with a robust mandate for protection of civilians illustrate what this discursive shift of international solidarity can mean in practice.
The discursive shift created the groundwork for a wider embrace of the core
concept of protection that had originated with actors coming from the normative
perspectives of human security and regional emancipation. This meant, above
all, a more sovereignty-friendly framing. While ICISS had argued for a re-characterization [ ] from sovereignty as control to sovereignty as responsibility,84 the
World Summit outcome document focused squarely on the responsibility of
national governments. It stated that [e]ach individual State has the responsibility
to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes
against humanity and that the international community is committed to build
and help States build capacity and to assist those which are under stress.85 In
this, it tried to overcome the tension between the two different understandings
of sovereignty. It left governments in the drivers seat regarding protection obligations, and recognised that the international community may primarily help
them full those. By framing sovereignty in this rather traditional way, the
outcome document spoke to non-aligned and even anti-imperialist arguments.
Sovereignty was thus something to be enhanced and reinforced rather than
replaced and substituted by the international community when governments
failed to protect their populations. When the outcome document got to timely
and decisive action under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, meaning use of force,
it relied on the same legal justication as robust peacekeeping, which UN
member states had practised since the early 1990s. In addition to the many qualiers, previously sceptical countries could point to the role of the UNGAa
forum that non-aligned and regional emancipation perspectives have traditionally
dominated to specify R2Ps implications. Moreover, the focus on capacity building and international assistance reinforced a non-aligned and regional emancipation understanding of sovereignty. It acknowledged that states may struggle to
full their international obligations because they lack adequate resources, not
because they had oppressive regimes. It sounded more like international solidarity
than interference.
This discursive shift also made it easier for states that had espoused a human
security perspective to promote R2P. When the UNGA president had levelled
old-style anti-imperialist criticism against R2P in the rst GA debate in 2009,86
Chile, for example, pointed out that [o]bviously, the world leaders at the 2005
World Summit were not thinking only about the use of forcean option that, we
all agree, is an extreme measure of last resort. [ ] That is why I said that some
emphasize half of one pillar.87
The outcome document diffused the previously toxic debate about humanitarian
interventions. The powerful discourse of international failure in Rwanda and Srebrenica in the previous decade, accompanied by public outrage over the situation in
84. International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, "The Responsibilty to Protect",
op. cit., p. 13. Emphasis in original.
85. UN General Assembly, "Resolution 60/1. 2005 World Summit Outcome", op. cit., paras 138 and 139.
86. UN General Assembly, "Concept Note on the Responsibility to Protect Populations from Genocide,
War Crimes, Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes against Humanity", UN Doc. A/63/958, New York, 9 September [rst circulated 17 July] 2009).
87. UN General Assembly, "Meeting Records, Sixty-third Session, 98th Plenary Meeting: Report of the
Secretary-General (A/63/677)", UN Doc. A/63/PV.98, New York, 24 July 2009, pp. 1011.

International Responsibility as Solidarity

53

Darfur, meant the international community largely shared a condemnation of genocide and the other core crimes, recognised for example in the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court. By taking an approach of consensual solidarism to
R2P and UN conict management in general, remaining disputes regarding
robust peacekeeping, while substantial, could be carried out in a relatively more
constructive atmosphere. The Force Intervention Brigade in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the UN assistance mission in Mali demonstrate the potential teeth
of a consensual solidarist approach to atrocity prevention. Whenever state authorities are responsible for mass atrocity crimes, effective and internationally acceptable action remains open to question. A decade after the World Summit, further
capitalising on this normative contribution could provide more effective protection
of populations in practice.

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Disclosure Statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
All authors in this special issue gratefully acknowledge generous support from the
Volkswagen Foundation through its programme Europe and Global Challenges,
which provided the funding for their project on Global Norm Evolution and the
Responsibility to Protect [Grant no. 86 917].

About the Authors


C.S.R. Murthy is Professor of International Organization at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His publications and research interests touch upon international security, human rights, the United Nations, the Third World and Indias
foreign policy. He was Chief Editor of International Studies.
Gerrit Kurtz is a non-resident fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi),
Berlin and a doctoral candidate at Kings College, London. His main areas of interest are global security governance including peacekeeping and protection of populations at risk, as well as Indian foreign policy and diplomatic studies.

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