Will R2P be ready when disaster strikes? – The rationale of the Responsibility to Protect in an environmental context

Abstract

This article answers the question whether the rationale behind the Responsibility to Protect can be applied or should be applicable in an environmental context. While the original report by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which developed the Responsibility to Protect, allowed for such application, the discussion remained mainly centred on the protection from atrocity crimes. To this end, the article first assesses the two main rationales behind the Responsibility to Protect which are implied in the present discourse about the Responsibility to Protect and then applies the more favourable rationale to three scenarios within an environmental context.

Keywords:

• responsibility to protect
• humanitarian intervention
• environmental disaster
• ICISS

Acknowledgements

This article was written as part of the author's LL.M. in International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. The topic was self-conceived. The author would like to thank Professor Andrea Bianchi for his supervision.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Konstantin Kleine is a PhD student at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. He has recently graduated from the LL.M. programme at the same institute. His research interests include human protection, legal theory and failing states.

ORCID

Konstantin Kleine http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5409-0174

Notes

1 The term Supernorm is borrowed from Anthony D'Amato, ‘It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Jus Cogens!’, Connecticut Journal of International Law 6 (1990): 1; for the impact of R2P see Spencer Zifcak, ‘Falls the Shadow: The Responsibility to Protect from Theory to Practice', in Responsibility to Protect and Sovereignty, ed. Charles Sampford and Ramesh Thakur (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 11; Peter Hilpold, ‘Von der Humanitären Intervention zur Schutzverantwortung', in Die Schutzverantwortung (R2P): Ein Paradigmenwechsel in der Entwicklung des Internationalen Rechts, ed. Peter Hilpold (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2013), 2–4.

2 Gareth Evans, The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), 11.

3 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (Ottawa: IDRC Books, 2001), 13.

4 ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect, viii.

5 Hilpold, ‘Schutzverantwortung’, 9.

6 ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect, 17.

7 Ibid.

8 Peter Hilpold, ‘Schutzverantwortung und Humanitäre Intervention in Historischer Perspektive', in Die Schutzverantwortung (R2P): Ein Paradigmenwechsel in der Entwicklung des Internationalen Rechts, ed. Peter Hilpold (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2013), 64–6.

9 Hilpold, ‘Historische Perspektive’, 79.

10 Andreas Osiander, ‘Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Westphalian Myth’, International Organizations 55 (2001): 251.

11 Hilpold, ‘Historische Perspektive’, 89, 92.

12 Ibid., 61.

13 Ibid., 92.

14 Ibid., 108

15 Ibid., 111.

16 UNSC, Res. 688 (5 April 1991), UN Doc. S/RES/688.

17 UNSC, Res. 794 (2 December 1992), UN Doc. S/RES/794.

18 UNSC, Res. 940 (31 July 1994), UN Doc. S/RES/940.

19 ‘Deeply disturbed by the magnitude of the human suffering involved’, UNSC, Res. 688 (5 April 1991), UN Doc. S/RES/688; ‘Gravely alarmed by the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Somalia and underlining the urgent need for the quick delivery of humanitarian assistance’, UNSC, Res. 794 (2 December 1992), UN Doc. S/RES/794; ‘Gravely concerned by the significant further deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Haiti’, UNSC, Res. 940 (31 July 1994), UN Doc. S/RES/940.

20 Bruno Simma, ‘NATO, the UN and the Use of Force: Legal Aspects’, European Journal of International Law 10 (1999): 14.

21 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), ‘We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the Twenty-first Century: Report of the Secretary-General’ (27 March 2000), UN Doc. A/54/2000, paras 217–18.

22 Ibid., para. 219.

23 ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect, vii.

24 ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect.

25 Ibid., 16; Carsten Stahn, ‘Responsibility to Protect: Political Rhetoric or Emerging Legal Norm?’, American Journal of International Law 101 (2007): 102–3; Jonah Eaton, ‘An Emerging Norm? Determining the Meaning and Legal Status of the Responsibility to Protect’, Michigan Journal of International Law 32 (2011): 774.

26 Eaton, ‘An Emerging Norm?’, 770.

27 Hilpold, ‘Historische Perspektive’, 84; Stahn, ‘Responsibility to Protect’, 111.

28 Stahn, ‘Responsibility to Protect’, 111.

29 Ibid., 112.

30 Hilpold, ‘Schutzverantwortung’, 5.

31 Ibid., 7; Stahn, ‘Responsibility to Protect’, 114.

32 Stahn, ‘Responsibility to Protect’, 115.

33 Ibid., 118; Michael W. Doyle, ‘Law, Ethics, and the Responsibility to Protect', in The Ethics of Armed Humanitarian Intervention, ed. Don E. Scheid (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 188–9.

34 Stahn, ‘Responsibility to Protect’, 117, 119.

35 Ibid., 120.

36 UNGA, Res. 60/1 ‘2005 World Summit Outcome’ (24 October 2005), UN Doc. A/RES/60/1.

37 Ibid., paras 138–9.

38 ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect, XII.

39 Ibid.

40 See for international crimes: International Criminal Court, Elements of Crime (2011); for the ICISS scope see also ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect, 33.

41 Eaton, ‘An Emerging Norm?’, 779–80.

42 Ibid., 779–80.

43 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 December 1948, 78 U.N.T.S. 277.

44 Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, 12 August 1949, 75 U.N.T.S. 31; Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea, 12 August 1949, 75 U.N.T.S. 85; Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 12 August 1949, 75 U.N.T.S. 135; Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, 12 August 1949, 75 U.N.T.S. 287.

45 For the lack of such convention on crimes against humanity see International Law Commission, ‘First Report on Crimes against Humanity’ (17 February 2015), UN Doc. A/CN.4/680, paras 10–15.

46 UNGA, ‘Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: Report of the Secretary-General’ (12 January 2009), UN Doc. A/63/677.

47 Doyle, ‘Law, Ethics, and the Responsibility to Protect’, 205–6.

48 David Scheffer, ‘Atrocity Crimes Framing the Responsibility to Protect’, Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 40 (2007): 117.

49 UNGA, ‘We the Peoples', para. 217.

50 ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect, vii.

51 Ibid., xii.

52 Ibid.

53 Ibid.

54 International Criminal Court, Elements of Crime (2011), 13–14.

55 ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect, 33.

56 Ibid., 33.

57 Ibid., 31.

58 Ibid., 34.

59 Kenneth Veitch, ‘Social Solidarity and the Power of Contract’, Journal of Law and Society 38 (2011): 189, 204.

60 ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect, 17–18.

61 Ibid., 17–18.

62 Gareth Evans names himself and Lee Hamilton as the (former) politicians in the ICISS: Evans, Responsibility to Protect, 5.

63 ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect, 83.

64 Scheffer, ‘Atrocity Crimes Framing the Responsibility to Protect’, 117, 135.

65 UNGA, ‘We the Peoples’, paras 217–18.

66 Evans, Responsibility to Protect, 2–3.

67 Jason A. Edwards, ‘The Mission of Healing: Kofi Annan's Failed Apology’, Atlantic Journal of Communication 16 (2008): 92–4.

68 Mohamed Sahnoun, Somalia: The Missed Opportunities (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1994).

69 Eaton, ‘An Emerging Norm?’, 770.

70 Paul R. Williams and Meghan E. Stewart, ‘Humanitarian Intervention: The New Missing Link in the fight to Prevent Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide?’, Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 40 (2007): 97.

71 Gareth Evans, ‘The Responsibility to Protect: Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention’, ASIL Proceedings 98 (2004): 83.

72 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (adopted 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2002, last amended 2010).

73 Gareth Evans, ‘The Responsibility to Protect in Environmental Emergencies’, ASIL Proceedings 103 (2009): 29.

74 International Law Commission, Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1998 (Volume II (Part Two)), UN Doc. A/CN.4/SER.A/1998/Add.l (Part 2), paras 322–30.

75 Ramesh Thakur, ‘The Responsibility to Protect: Retrospect and Prospect', in Responsibility to Protect and Sovereignty, ed. Charles Sampford and Ramesh Thakur (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 200.

76 International Criminal Court, Elements of Crime (2011), 6; see also Scheffer, ‘Atrocity Crimes Framing the Responsibility to Protect’, 114; and Linda A. Malone, ‘Green Helmets: Eco-Intervention in the Twenty-First Century – Unilateral and Multilateral Intervention’, ASIL Proceedings 103 (2009): 24.

77 International Criminal Court, Elements of Crime (2011), n. 9.

78 International Law Commission, ‘Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters’, UN Doc. A/61/10 Annex C.

79 Evans, Responsibility to Protect, 65.

80 Thakur, ‘Retrospect and Prospect’, 200.

81 Ibid., 201.

82 Evans, Responsibility to Protect, 66–7; Thakur, ‘Retrospect and Prospect’, 200.

83 Evans, Responsibility to Protect, 69; Thakur, ‘Retrospect and Prospect’, 200.

84 International Law Commission, ‘Provisional Summary Record of the 3018th Meeting on 9th July 2009’ (27 August 2010), UN Doc. A/CN.4/SR.3018, 4, 6, 7, 11, 14, 15, 16, 18.

85 International Law Commission, ‘Report on the Work of its Sixty-sixth Session’ (5 May to 6 June and 7 July to 8 August 2014), UN Doc. A/69/10, 86.

86 Ibid., 88.

87 Ibid., 88.

88 Malone, ‘Green Helmets’, 26.

89 Ibid., 25.