CYIL Vol. 5, 2014

RESPONSIBILITY WHILE PROTECTING ȃ AN ALTERNATIVE TO R2P… same conclusion applies to the proposal of having UN-mandates missions subject to monitoring and control which would ensure that the limits set by the Security Council authorising resolution would not be overstepped. The idea again fits well within the R2P framework, yet more details should have been provided by Brazil to give the idea concrete contours. Under the second reading, RwP introduces sequencing into R2P and places emphasis upon prevention over reaction. As we saw in the previous section, the two elements could sit rather well within the R2P concept as defined under the Outcome Document. The relationship between the pillars could effectively be defined as that of complementarity (pillars one and two) and of subsidiarity (pillars one and three). Although the Special Rapporteur Edward C. Luck has repeatedly criticised the sequencing approach, it seems that the criticism has more to do with the idea of chronology introduced into the sequencing rather than sequencing itself. As Brazil has recently shown willingness to revise its approach, declaring that the sequencing of the three pillars had to be “logical, not chronological”, 39 the controversy in this area could be easily done away. The same holds for the emphasis upon prevention, which has been present in, if not characteristic of, the concept of R2P ever since the publication of the ICISS report. The third reading pertains to the need of the reform of the UN Security Council. At first sight, this element seems to be rather new, because the Outcome Document does not link R2P with the question of the institutional reforms at the United Nations. Yet, the relationship between the two topics is difficult to deny. The Outcome Document implicitly designs the UN Security Council as the only appropriate body to assume the subsidiary responsibility to protect in cases in which the territorial state manifestly fails to protect its population from the four core crimes under international law. If it is to assume this role, the UN Security Council naturally needs to feature both efficiency and legitimacy. Brazil is right to claim that the former is not independent of the latter and that there have been, for a long period, doubts about the representativeness of the organ. At the same time, Brazil might be too optimistic in its belief that adding new members, including new permanent members (Brazil being one of them), is necessarily the best redress to the flaws exhibited by the UN Security Council. Yet reopening the debate about the topic and placing it within the broader context of R2P fits quite logically within the commitments made at the World Summit in 2005. Largely overlapping with R2P, RwP cannot be considered as a true alternative to this concept. Rather, it gets back to the original ethos on which R2P was founded – that focused on prevention and repression of core international crimes, favouring prevention over reaction and stressing the idea of responsibility: the primary responsibility of the territorial state as well as the subsidiary responsibility of the international community, translating inter alia into a cautious and disciplined use of force. RwP addresses certain shortcomings of R2P which usually result from the gaps left in the 2005 Outcome Document or from the way in which R2P has been 39 Brazil, Statement by H. E. Ambassador Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, 5 September 2012, op. cit.

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