Intervention By Invitation Within The Responsibility To Protect Framework

Abstract

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) was introduced as a response to Kofi Annan’s plea to resolve the paradox of illegal humanitarian interventions versus inaction by the international community in the face of atrocity crimes. By shifting the discourse from ‘sovereignty as control’ to ‘sovereignty as responsibility’, R2P places primary responsibility on states to protect their population from atrocity crimes and shifts this responsibility to the international community when the state is ‘unable’ or ‘unwilling’ to protect. However, after it was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, R2P has not yet been a solution to ongoing humanitarian crises as evinced by the current cases mainly due to the political impasse at the United Nations Security Council. In this vein, this thesis explores the place of the ‘intervention by invitation’ (IvI) within the R2P framework as an aspect of prevention and/or timely action that can resolve the impasse. Building on state consent, the invited states assume the collective responsibility to protect if the UNSC fails to respond to the mass atrocity crimes. In view of this, the responsibility of the inviting and intervening states is intertwined in the three-pillar implementation strategy of R2P. As part of its Pillar I responsibilities, the state may request for military assistance in case of inability to protect the population and trigger Pillar II that is international assistance. Pursuant to the triggering of the responsibility of the international community, the intervening states may uphold the international community’s Pillar II responsibility through ‘preventive deployment’. In the event that the state is manifestly failing to protect its population and there arises a need for decisive action, when the Security Council fails to adopt a decision, such as for the authorisation of all necessary measures up to and including the use of force, based on the existing and applicable consent, the invited interveners can undertake the use of force in a ‘timely and decisive’ manner under Pillar III. Accordingly, to consider situations where an intervention is to take place, this thesis proposes a newly formulated test known as ‘effective population protection legitimacy’ (EPPL) in order to ensure its effective and right implementation. The applicability and feasibility of this test is analysed through the case of Yemen.