Abstract
In 2005 the member states of the United Nations recognized a “responsibility to protect” (“R2P”) victims of mass atrocities such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. They acknowledged a special role for the U.N. Security Council in responding to these atrocities, including potentially authorizing military action using its extensive powers under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter. However, the Council has very rarely been able to agree on appropriate action, and the five permanent Council members (“P5”), most notably China and Russia, have often vetoed or threatened to veto Council resolutions authorizing R2P action. The article argues that the veto poses a major impediment to the Council acting on its R2P responsibilities, and that to resolve it, the P5, and all U.N. member states, need to agree on a common ethical approach. The article proposes such an approach based on ethical concepts that are widely endorsed by states, especially in the U.N. Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and explores its implications for legal and ethical controversies relating to the role of the Council, its obligations under R2P, and proposed reforms of the veto.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
I have elaborated on this approach and more thoroughly defended it in my previous books and articles. See, e.g., Lepard 2002.
I have explored support for this principle in religious texts and traditions in further detail in my previous books. See, e.g., Lepard 2002: 45–47.
All quotes from the Qur’an are from the translation in Arberry (1955).
For further examples of passages expressing such support, and more detailed analysis of them, see Lepard 2002: 89-92.
References
‘Abdu’l-Bahá. 1971. Paris talks: addresses given by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Paris in 1911–1912. New Delhi: Bahá’í Publishing Trust.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá. 1981. Some answered questions, trans. Laura Clifford Barney. Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust.
Arberry, A.J., trans. 1955. The Koran interpreted. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Bagnoli, Carla. 2006. Humanitarian intervention as a perfect duty: a Kantian argument. In Humanitarian intervention: nomos XLVII, ed. Terry Nardin and Melissa S. Williams, 117–140. New York: New York University Press.
Bahá’u’lláh. 1976. Gleanings from the writings of Bahá’u’lláh, trans. Shoghi Effendi. Wilmette, Ill.: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 2d rev. ed.
Bahá’u’lláh. 1978. Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh revealed after the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, trans. Habib Taherzadeh. Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre.
Beitz, Charles R. 1979. Political theory and international relations. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Beitz, Charles R. 1994. Cosmopolitan liberalism and the states system. In Political restructuring in Europe: ethical perspectives, ed. Chris Brown, 123–136. London: Routledge.
Beitz, Charles R. 2009. The idea of human rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Besson, Samantha. 2015. The bearers of human rights’ duties and responsibilities for human rights: a quiet (r)evolution? Social Philosophy and Policy 32: 244–268.
Blatter, Ariela, and Paul D. Williams. 2011. The responsibility not to veto. Global Responsibility to Protect 3 (3): 301–322.
Brooks, E. Bruce, and A. Taeko Brooks, trans. 1998. The original analects: sayings of Confucius and his successors. New York: Columbia University Press.
Buchanan, Allen. 2013. The heart of human rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Conze, Edward, trans. 1959. Buddhist scriptures. London: Penguin Books.
Dworkin, Ronald. 1986. Law’s empire. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Evans, Gareth. 2008. The responsibility to protect: ending mass atrocity crimes once and for all. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
Evans, Gareth. 2020. The dream and the reality. Global Responsibility to Protect 12: 363–365.
Follesdal, Andreas. 2005. Human rights and relativism. In Real world justice: grounds, principles, human rights, and social institutions, ed. Andreas Follesdal and Thomas Pogge, 265–283. Dordrecht: Springer.
Frost, Mervyn. 1996. Ethics in international relations: a constitutive theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hashmi, Sohail H. 1993. Is there an Islamic ethic of humanitarian intervention? Ethics and International Affairs 7: 55–73.
Himes, Kenneth R. 1993. Just war, pacifism and humanitarian intervention. America 169 (4): 10–15.
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (“ICISS”). 2001. The responsibility to protect: report of the international commission on intervention and state sovereignty. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre.
Küng, Hans, and Karl-Josef. Kuschel, eds. 1993. A global ethic: the declaration of the parliament of the world’s religions. New York: Continuum.
Lepard, Brian D. 2002. Rethinking humanitarian intervention: a fresh legal approach based on fundamental ethical principles in international law and world religions. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Lepard, Brian D. 2014. Ethical perspectives on interpreting and implementing article 4(h). In Africa and the responsibility to protect: article 4(h) of the African Union Constitutive Act, ed. Dan Kuwali and Frans Viljoen, 82–96. London: Routledge.
Liu Xiaoming. 2012. China believes Syria needs a peaceful solution. The Guardian. Feb. 9, 2012. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/feb/09/china-syria-veto-un-resolution. Accessed 22 Feb 2021.
Mill, John Stuart. 1974. Utilitarianism. In John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, on liberty, essay on Bentham, together with selected writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin, ed. Mary Warnock, 251–321. New York: New American Library.
Miller, David. 1995. On nationality. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Miller, David. 2006. Nationalism. In The Oxford handbook of political theory, ed. John S. Dryzek, Bonnie Honig, and Anne Phillips, 529–545. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Okeja, Uchenna B. 2013. Normative justification of a global ethic: a perspective from African philosophy. Lanham: Lexington Books.
Parliament of the World’s Religions. 2020. Towards a global ethic: an initial declaration of the parliament of the world’s religions. https://parliamentofreligions.org/documents/towards-global-ethic-initial-declaration-fifth-directive. Accessed 20 Feb 2021.
Pattison, James. 2015. Mapping the responsibilities to protect: a typology of international duties. Global Responsibility to Protect 7: 190–210.
Pogge, Thomas W. 1992. Cosmopolitanism and sovereignty. Ethics 103: 48–75.
Pogge, Thomas. 2006. Moralizing humanitarian intervention: why jurying fails and how law can work. In Humanitarian intervention: nomos XLVII, ed. Terry Nardin and Melissa S. Williams, 158–187. New York: New York University Press.
Rawls, John. 1971. A theory of justice. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Rawls, John. 1999. The law of peoples with “the idea of public reason revisited”. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Security Council Report. 2020. (1). The Security Council veto. https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/working_methods_veto.pdf. Accessed 30 Dec 2020.
Security Council Report. 2020. (2). UN Security Council working methods: the veto. https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/un-security-council-working-methods/the-veto.php. Accessed 30 December 2020.
Security Council Resolution (“S.C. Res.”) 1973. 2011. https://undocs.org/S/RES/1973(2011). Accessed 20 July 2020.
U.N. Charter. 1945. https://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/. Accessed 20 July 2020.
U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“Universal Declaration”). 1948. G.A. Res. 217A (III). https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/. Accessed 22 Feb 2021.
United Nations. 2017. Russia, China block Security Council action on use of chemical weapons in Syria. 28 February 2017. https://news.un.org/en/story/2017/02/552362-russia-china-block-security-council-action-use-chemical-weapons-syria. Accessed 20 July 2020.
United Nations. 2019. Member states exchange views on responsibility to protect, as General Assembly debates best ways for preventing genocide, war crimes. 27 June 2019. https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12159.doc.htm. Accessed 20 July 2020.
United Nations World Summit Outcome Document. 2005. G.A. Res. 60/1. https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/generalassembly/docs/globalcompact/A_RES_60_1.pdf. Accessed 20 July 2020.
Walzer, Michael. 1994. Thick and thin: moral argument at home and abroad. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Weeramantry, C.G. 1988. Islamic jurisprudence: an international perspective. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lepard, B.D. Challenges in Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: The Security Council Veto and the Need for a Common Ethical Approach. J Ethics 25, 223–246 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-021-09360-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-021-09360-8