International Responses to Mass Atrocities in Africa. Kurt Mills
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rights has changed. The use of humanitarian arguments to justify the war in Iraq in 2003 certainly does not help the depoliticization of R2P and does little to quell the suspicion. However, parallel with, and indeed prior to, the R2P debate has been another relevant discourse having to do with the protection of civilians (PoC). PoC partially, but not completely, overlaps with R2P. It aims to protect people in the midst of conflict, and has been included in Security Council resolutions mandating peacekeeping operations since 1999. It is separate from debates over military intervention and builds upon a growing consensus about the need to protect civilians from the effects of conflict. While it may contain a military element in the form of peacekeeping, it is very different from R2P since peacekeeping is (generally) more consensual, and PoC has a much wider array of (softer) tools at its disposal.
PoC is understood as a conceptual and operational construct and has a complex relationship with R2P. Like R2P, it has its roots in the failures of the 1990s, but while its evolution has paralleled R2P, it has come to mean something somewhat distinct and more palatable for many countries than R2P.87 In 1999, Secretary-General Annan stated in his Report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict that PoC “is fundamental to the central mandate of the Organization.”88 In 2004, the Secretary-General, noting that PoC had already been included in a number of peacekeeping operations, called for “the rapid deployment of a force to protect civilians.”89 The connection to peacekeeping is key since it is the context of peacekeeping that makes PoC more palatable than R2P for many UN member states.
The Security Council first engaged with the protection of civilians debate in 1999 when it passed Resolution 1265. It followed this up with Resolutions 1674 in 2006 and 1894 in 2009, which were much stronger in both their condemnation of violence against civilians and the stated willingness to act. The UN General Assembly’s Special Committee on Peacekeeping, known as the C-34, agreed to include a PoC subsection in its annual report.90
The debate over, and application of, PoC has been particularly prominent in the DRC. However, we must start with the multiple interpretations of PoC. The standard starting point is the definition of protection used by the ICRC, which has been adopted by the UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), the body created by the General Assembly to coordinate UN and non-UN humanitarian actors: “Protection is defined as all activities aimed at obtaining full respect for the rights of the individual in accordance with the letter and spirit of the relevant bodies of law, namely human rights law, international humanitarian law and refugee law.”91 This is very broad and encompasses a wide variety of activities, which, according to the ICRC, include responsive activities—those which directly respond to an abuse; remedial action—restoring dignity and living conditions; and environment-building—creating an environment where individuals can enjoy their full panoply of rights. This is so broad as to be meaningless. It is, in one sense, coterminus with the global human rights project. How it is interpreted and implemented is key. The definition from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA) adapts this broad understanding:
A concept that encompasses all activities aimed at obtaining full respect for the rights of the individual in accordance with the letter and spirit of human rights, refugee and international humanitarian law. Protection involves creating an environment conducive to respect for human beings, preventing and/or alleviating the immediate effects of a specific pattern of abuse, and restoring dignified conditions of life through reparation, restitution and rehabilitation.92
This definition was accepted by the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) in the draft UNMIS POC Strategy-Security Concept.93 The understanding of what this means for UNMIS is narrowed a bit in the Concept:
The full gamut of POC is very wide. UNMIS is taking a layered approach to developing an UNMIS-specific POC strategy. Three layers of protection will be covered in the strategy: protection of civilians under imminent threat of physical violence; protection of civilians with regard to securing access to humanitarian and relief activities; and the longer-term aspect of protection in the context of Human Rights (HR) and Conflict Prevention and Management. This concept covers the inner layer of POC within the UNMIS POC Strategy—the protection of civilians under imminent threat of violence…. Sexual, gender or child violence will not be treated separately in this Concept as they are all forms of “physical violence.”
Thus, while still broad, it focuses more on physical protection, but also on protecting humanitarian activities. It is also tied into broader political goals of conflict management and protection. At the end it also points to a key issue in the context of the development of PoC, namely that particular groups have also been singled out for protection treatment in various UN resolutions—for example, women94 and children.95
PoC language was included in the mandate of ten96 UN peacekeeping operations between 1999 and 2009, and an additional six97 UN-sanctioned operations led by regional organizations or individual states.98 This language frequently includes admonitions for peacekeepers “to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence” and to provide a “safe and secure environment.”99 The mandate frequently also includes the caveat “without prejudice to the responsibility of the host state.”100 This indicates the relationship of PoC to the core of UN peacekeeping and in particular that peacekeeping relies on the consent of the host state to operate. When the state does not facilitate the creation of a secure environment for its citizens by protecting them, or when it carries out violence itself against its citizens, PoC can be severely undermined. This highlights a key difference between R2P and PoC. While R2P is about protecting civilians, the tools available to decision makers under the heading of R2P are potentially more robust than with PoC. Under R2P, the UN can authorize the use of force against the wishes of a state, as was done in Libya. PoC relies on the consent and cooperation of the host state. There is frequently confusion about the status of PoC in the peacekeeping mandate. Even when robust Chapter VII language is included that allows the use of force—“all necessary means”—the intent of Security Council is not always clear, and frequently commanders in the field see the Chapter VII language as an add-on that fits uncomfortably with a Chapter VI core. The fact that peacekeepers have to maintain relationships with multiple partners, including the state, makes using robust force problematic. This has been a particular issue in Darfur, where the government has placed severe restrictions on peacekeepers that interfere with the PoC mandate. This is not surprising, given that it is the government that is either carrying out or supporting a large part of the violence, but it highlights the problematic nature of PoC in the context of peacekeeping. Further, peacekeepers are frequently not given the tools they need to carry out such robust action. Nor is it frequently clear to those commanders on the ground exactly how they are supposed to carry out their PoC mandate, since there is no operational guidance from the Security Council for what PoC actually means.101
Yet, as noted, there is a consensus within the UN regarding PoC. Because of this consensus, and the fact that it has a somewhat independent lineage from, and different connotations than, R2P, it is easier to talk about in the Security Council and other diplomatic exchanges. UN humanitarian agencies, such as UNHCR and OCHA, use the terminology of PoC rather than R2P because it describes better what they do and also seems to take politics out of the equation. Likewise, humanitarian NGOs will frequently also engage more with the PoC terminology, even when talking about R2P situations, because it makes conversation with states easier and less threatening. Humanitarian organizations may also not see the value added of R2P over PoC or the relevance of R2P to their activities. As many humanitarians will point out, PoC has been around for a while, and the protection activities they engage in do not fall under R2P. They perceive PoC as nonpolitical,102 or at least argue that PoC can be deployed nonpolitically, whereas R2P cuts to the core of issues related to sovereignty—issues they do not want to point to, even if their work raises significant issues of sovereignty. R2P is seen as not useful, and there is significant wariness about the equation of PoC and R2P, even as many PoC activities are being repackaged as R2P.103 R2P is perceived as a Security Council concern, or something that happens in New York, whereas the more Geneva-centric humanitarian community sees PoC as much more relevant.104 Some humanitarians can also be cynical and note that many concepts and developments do