The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) take-off: A constructivist analysis of the R2P based on its application in the conflict in Libya and Syria

• Ano de defesa: 2022
• Autor(a) principal: Pacheco, Larissa Campos dos Santos
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Biblioteca Digitais de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Palavras-chave em Português: Constructivism; Construtivismo; Líbia; Libya; Responsabilidade de Proteger; Responsibility to Protect; Síria; Syria
• Link de acesso: https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/101/101131/tde-03052022-080714/

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) has been in the spotlight of International Relations discussions since its endorsement in the United Nations (UN) system in 2005. However, since the beginning of the armed conflicts in Libya and Syria in 2011, scholars and practitioners have been increasingly discussing the applicability of the R2P beyond theory, as the level of violence in these scenarios has pressured the UN to effectively apply protective measures due the significant threat of crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes. The R2P has been contested and has failed in providing assistance to Syria, and while in Libya the UNs main argument to intervene in the country was based on the R2P, it has been questioned whether the results in the aftermath of the R2Ps implementation have been auspicious in Libya. Considering this scenario, many scholars have had a negative bias that has led to a detrimental instead of a candid analysis of the R2P. This study has taken into consideration this negative partiality therefore, the main question of this research is: If the R2P has failed in Libya and/or Syria, does it mean that the R2P has failed in its overall? The hypothesis of this study is that despite its setbacks, the R2P has contributed to strengthen a series of norms, instruments, and agendas that are interconnected under the same goal, to protect civilians and strengthen human rights norms. In order to respond its main question and test its hypothesis, this study has introduced the origins of the R2P and its reasoning, subsequently the R2P Report written by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) in 2001 was presented as well as the adaptation of the R2P text within the UN system. After a literature review of the R2P, the research adopted the premises of the constructivist theory as theoretical vein to analyze the R2P and its evolution within the UN. Therefore, arguments utilized to discuss the development of R2P in Libya and Syria are grounded in this theoretical background. Throughout this work, this study identified insights that are important to the R2P literature, to the normative contestation debate of the constructivist literature and to human rights scholars and practitioners. Furthermore, the study has come across reverberations of the R2Ps advancements and failures at the UN. These effects corroborate the hypothesis that even though the R2P has failed in specific scenarios, it has strengthened the human protection rhetoric, and has pressured States to find alternative ways within the UN System to minimally guarantee what has been established by the R2P as the Independent Investigative Mechanisms of the Human Rights Council.