International responsibility as solidarity: The impact of the world summit negotiations on the R2P trajectory

Abstract

The 2005 World Summit’s 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 identified the lack of sufficient 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 influential 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 fit 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.