Introduction The evolution of security studies
The evolution of security studies has involved much critical examination of
precisely what counts as “security.” Much of this examination is a critique of traditional
security studies, or strategic studies, which posits a politico-military conception of
security. The emergence of “critical security studies” brought with it a call for a
“broadening” and “deepening” of the security agenda. By this, it means to include more
security threats beyond those of a military-oriented nature (broadening) and considering
more referents and agents beyond that of the state (deepening). However, emergent
arguments suggest that while the content of critical security narratives has been altered
due to this broadening and deepening, the form aligns with that of a traditional security
narrative. As Wibben (2011) argues, traditional security narratives include the following
elements: (1) threats that locate danger; (2) referents to be secured; (3) agents charged
with providing security; and (4) means by which threats are contained and, so the tale is
told, security provided (Wibben, 2011: 7). Security narratives that do not conform to the
preceding structure are subsequently not treated as “security talk.” Working to elucidate
counter-narratives of security requires an “opening” of security. This requires uncovering
the epistemological foundations of security. Huysman (1998) writes: “The main purpose
is to render problematic what is taken for granted, namely that security practices order
social life in a particular way” (Huysman, 1998: 233).
In order to elucidate these counter-narratives of security in hopes of challenging
the primacy and hegemony of traditional security narratives, the Responsibility to Protect
(RtoP) doctrine will be examined via discourse analysis. In so doing, I ask the following
questions: (1) Does the RtoP doctrine perpetuate a traditional “telling” via its intention
to protect seemingly vulnerable populations from a limited type, albeit egregious, of
human rights violations? (2) Is the RtoP doctrine built upon a gendered understanding of
security, thus masking/silencing alternative understandings/claims of security? In
answering these questions, it is my intention to critically assess (in)security, both as a
singular phenomenon and a process, and attempt to understand its complex
interconnections. In so doing, I hope to show that understanding the epistemological
assumptions of security can contribute to the broader field of security studies and assist in
analyzing the utility of security policy, such as the RtoP doctrine.
Looking at RtoP through a feminist post-structural lens allows for a rethinking of
security. Using the term security assumes three basic questions: (1) Security from what?
(2) Security by whom? (3) Security achieved through which means (Liotta, 2002).
Rethinking security requires asking a fourth question: Security for whom? Attention
paid to this question will reveal the extent of security RtoP envisions, and to whom (or
what) the policy is oriented towards. The methods of analysis that will be employed to
accomplish this task are discourse analysis and case studies of Sri Lanka and Sudan.
Discourse analysis of the RtoP doctrine will reveal the form the security narrative takes,
and what is meant by security. The case studies of Sri Lanka and Sudan will involve
discourse analyses of documents related to RtoP, and will exhibit how the security
narrative proffered by RtoP impacts events in both of these cases. Poststructural critiques
can be employed to examine any commonplace situation, any ordinary event or process,
in order to think differently about that occurrence- to open up what seems “natural” to
other possibilities (St. Pierre, 2000). Examining security in general, and RtoP
specifically, through feminist poststructural lenses enables this very possibility.
Security Studies: From the beginning
In order to make sense of critical variants/approaches of/to security studies, it is
necessary to trace its development as a subfield of International Relations (IR).
Traditional security studies is predicated upon a statist ontology; states are the central unit
of analysis, and security is constituted as protection of the state. Traditional security
studies assume that conflict between states is always a possibility (due to the anarchic
nature of the international system) and that the use of military force has far-reaching
effects on states and societies (Walt, 1991). Accordingly, security studies may be defined
as the study of threat, use, and control of military force (Nye and Lynn-Jones, 1988).
Military force is prioritized in traditional security studies largely due to the “rational
actor” assumption. Due to the aforementioned anarchical environment, states are
expected to behave in ways that will accord with their interests, which can be broadly
defined as self-preservation. Jervis (1978) characterized the situation as such:
Because there are no institutions or authorities that can make and
enforce international laws, the policies of cooperation that will bring
mutual rewards if others cooperate may bring disaster if they do not.
Because states are aware of this, anarchy encourages behavior that
leaves all concerned worse off than they could be, even in the extreme
case in which all states would like to freeze the status quo (Jervis,
1978: 167).
In other words, states have incentive to maintain the status quo. Lepgold (1998)
examines the behavior of NATO countries as a way to test the rational actor assumption.
International regime theory views interstate institutions (such as NATO) as mechanisms
to facilitate cooperation that might otherwise be unfeasible, but Lepgold ultimately
concludes NATO members will be reluctant to use to manage or settle disputes that do
not involve its members’ territories (Lepgold, 1998: 78). Ultimately, this upholds the
rational actor assumption, in that states act prudently, and in ways that correspond with
their interests. Limits upon cooperation do exist, and ultimately, states act in a manner
accordant with their preferences.
Furthermore, traditional security studies considers the conditions that make the
use of force more likely, the ways that the use of force affects individuals, states, and
societies, and the specific policies that states adopt in order to prepare for, prevent, or
engage in war. States remain the primary locus of control and decision-making in these
calculations. Gilpin (1981) stated: “the state is sovereign in that it must answer to no
higher authority in the international sphere. It alone defines and protects the rights of
individuals and groups (Gilpin, 1981: 17).” Waltz (1979) insisted that to say that a state
is sovereign means that it decides for itself how it will cope with its internal and external
problems. A majority of the traditional security studies literature fits comfortably within
the realist paradigm due to its state-centric nature, and focus on politico-military security
threats. The state decides what constitutes threats to its stability/sovereignty, and how
and when they are to be handled.
However, scholars such as Stephen Walt are quick to point out that military power
is not the only source of national security, and military threats are not the only dangers
that states face (though they are generally considered the most serious) (Walt, 1991).
Traditional security studies also focus on “statecraft” issues- arms control, diplomacy, and
crisis management for example. Additionally, the role of ideas is considered, such as the
role of “strategic beliefs” in foreign and military policy in works drawing upon
psychology (Jervis, 1976; Kull, 1988), and studies of military organizations and domestic
politics (Snyder, 1984, 1991; Van Evera, 1984; Thomson, 1990). These issues tie into the
main focus of the field as they bear directly on the likelihood and character of war. The
prospect of including nonmilitary phenomena in security studies, thus “broadening”
security is inimical to its mission. Broadening security, it is argued by proponents of
traditionalism, would destroy its intellectual coherence and make it more difficult to
devise solutions to any of these important problems (Walt, 1991). This issue shall be
returned to later in the chapter.
As a social science, traditional security studies seeks to develop general
explanatory propositions about the use of force in international politics (Walt, 1991).
Mirroring positivistic approaches to social science, traditional security studies scholars
engage in three main activities: 1) theory creation, the development of logically related
causal propositions explaining a particular phenomenon of interest; 2) theory testing,
attempts to verify, falsify, and refine competing theories by testing their predictions
against a scientifically selected body of evidence; and 3) theory application, the use of
existing knowledge to illuminate a specific policy problem (Walt, 1991). Examples of
theory testing/application research in traditional security studies are too numerous to
detail, but a prominent area explores the role of domestic politics, such as the democratic
peace (Small and Singer, 1976; Chan, 1984; Weede, 1984; Doyle, 1986; Maoz and
Abdolali, 1989), or regime change or revolution as a cause of conflict (Maoz, 1989; Walt,
1990). Ultimately, the tie that binds is building a knowledge base that explains
securityseeking behavior of states in an empirical manner, as to allow for further testing
and refining of theories within the corpus of knowledge.
To this end, traditional security studies is in search of cumulative knowledge
about the role of military force. To accomplish this goal, defenders of a traditional
approach argue the field must follow the standard canons of scientific research: careful
and consistent use of terms, unbiased measurement of critical concepts, and public
documentation of theoretical and empirical claims (Walt, 1991). In other words, work
must fit within the confines of positivistic social science in order to be considered proper
scientific research. This frame of mind renders “critical” approaches to security studies
(postpositivism, critical theory, feminism, postmodernism, poststructuralism etc.)
unlikely to gain traction in traditional security studies. By their very nature, they seek to
challenge, or even subvert, the conventional wisdom of traditional security studies, so this
lack of acceptance by traditional scholars should not be read as an obstacle to their
research agenda(s). However, bridging the divide is a difficult one nonetheless. Walt
contends that security studies (the traditional variant) should remain wary of the
counterproductive tangents that have seduced other areas of international studies, most
notably the “post-modern” approach to international affairs (Walt, 1991). Robert
Keohane suggests that: “until these writers have delineated a research program and
shown that it can illuminate important issues in world politics, they will remain on the
margins of the field” (Keohane, 1988). The preceding two statements signal the
importance of attending to ontology and epistemology in addressing the differences
between traditional security studies, and more critical approaches. It is to this issue that I
now turn.
May we speak about Ontology and Epistemology?
The ontology of traditional of security studies is state-centric as I previously
described. This is to say that states are postulated as unitary actors whose internal
characteristics, beyond an assessment of their relative capabilities, are not seen as
necessary for understanding their vulnerabilities or security-enhancing behavior (Waltz,
1979). States’ efforts to increase their power or engage in balance of power activities are
explained as attempts to improve their security. In this vein, military power remains a
central element of international politics, and therefore, the agenda of traditional security
studies is expanding, rather than shrinking. Traditional security studies, via its
statecentrism, reifies its importance, and treats it as a universal good thing. It is widely
acknowledged in IR, especially in human rights literature that states are both the primary
guarantor and violator of rights; the same can be said about security. Security,
according to many IR feminists, should be defined broadly in multidimensional and
multilevel terms- as the diminution of all forms of violence, including physical,
structural, and ecological (Tickner, 1992; Peterson and Runyan, 1993). Defining security
in this way allows for a broader and deeper vision to emerge; states are not the only
referent/object of security, and threats exist beyond those to the state. Indeed, Sylvester
(1994) suggests: “security is elusive and partial and involves struggle and contention; it
is a process rather than an ideal in which women must act as agents in the provision of
their own security.” Extending Sylvester’s line of analysis, we begin to see security as a
relational process/phenomenon. To speak of security requires treating insecurity as its
concomitant. In short, security and insecurity exist simultaneously, and each is essential
to the construction of the other. The security of someone/thing refers to its safety, its
well-being as well as to its limitations, its stability in order to assure its safety (Stern,
2005). If this is so, then insecurity has to do with danger, threat, harm, and the peril
involved with change and openness (Stern, 2005). If security equates to stability, then
any disruption can be termed insecurity. Security also implies a sense of belonging;
stability is wrought via inclusion in something larger than the individual (group,
community, state etc.). By calling into question realist boundaries between anarchy and
danger on the outside and order and security on the inside, feminists believe state-centric
or structural analyses miss the interrelation of insecurity across levels of analysis
(Tickner, 1997).
Returning to the broader questions of ontology and epistemology requires
distinguishing between causal and constitutive theories. Additionally, the general nature
of ontology and epistemology must be determined to make sense of the differences
between traditional security studies, and “alternative” approaches. In general,
epistemology refers to understandings of knowledge- of how we can know- and therefore
what constitutes a research question (Ackerly et al., 2005). Ontology refers to
understandings of the world; for instance, what constitutes relevant units of analysis (i.e.,
individuals, genders, states, classes, ethnicities) and whether the world and these units are
constant or dynamic and able to be changes through, inter alia, research (Ackerly et. al
2005). Critical, or “alternative” approaches to security studies all seek, in their own
ways, to reveal the complex and contingent nature of security. They do not eschew
analysis of the state, but they do not accept it as a given, and refuse to acknowledge the
primacy attributed to it in relation to security. In Chapter 2, I will address the relationship
between state citizenship and security, which will further elucidate this relationship.
Traditional security studies do attribute primacy to the state as it relates to
security; it possesses a statist ontology, which renders anything that threats the state as
security. What we know about security is tied up with the state, under the purview of
traditional security studies. Traditional security studies is an example of causal
theorizing: they ask “why?” and to some extent “how (Wendt, 1999)?” Critical
approaches to security exemplify constitutive theories: they ask “how-possible? and
“what” (Wendt, 1999)? In fitting the criteria of causal theory, traditional security security
studies accept both states and security as given. The security of state is threatened (X)
because a security threat (Y) exists. Both X and Y exist independent of each other, and X
precedes Y temporally in this case. Also, X must exist for Y to occur. Traditional
security studies fail to consider the constructed nature of security.
Paraphrasing Wendt, security is what states make of it. Additionally, traditional security
studies are incapable of envisioning referent objects beyond the state, and security
“threats” as anything other than that which impinges upon the state.
Constitutive theorizing, on the other hand, generally entails uncovering how
various phenomena interact with one another, and serve to (re)produce each other. In this
sense, the state and security do depend on each other, but neither is an ontological given.
The existence of the state justifies the perpetuation of security; it is an entity that is in
need of “securing.” Ideas or social structures have constitutive effects when they create
phenomena- properties, powers, dispositions, meanings, etc.- that are conceptually or
logically dependent on those ideas or structures, that exist only “in virtue” of them
(Wendt, 88). For example, conceiving of identity in a relational manner implies that
identity is given through reference to something it is not (Hansen, 2001); alternative
approaches within security studies are better equipped to attend to discursive
patterns/constructions of security. Deconstructing the discursive foundations of security,
and not accepting it as a given enables us to render problematic that which is taken for
granted. The value-added of critical approaches to security lies in this practice.
However, there is diversity in the critical camp of security studies, to which I turn to in
the next section.
Critical Approaches to Security
Addressing the conceptual basis of security requires asking a number of questions
about it. First, it must be determined precisely what is being secured (what is the referent
object). Secondly, the condition of security must be established. Finally, how do ideas
about security develop, enter the realm of public policy debate and discourse, and,
eventually, become institutionalized in hardware, organizations, roles, and practices
(Lipschutz, 1995)? Security is always a “hyphenated concept” and is always tied to a
particular referent object, to internal/external locations, to one or more sectors and to a
particular way of thinking about politics (Buzan and Hansen, 2009). Buzan and Hansen
state further that four additional questions in the broader field of International Security
Studies (ISS) have either implicitly or explicitly structured debates within the field since
the late 1940s. These questions are as follows: (1) whether to privilege the state as the
referent object; (2) the inclusion of internal as well as external threats; (3) expanding
security beyond the military sector and the use of force; and (4) whether to see security as
inextricably tied to a dynamic of threats, dangers and urgency (Buzan and Hansen, 2009).
These interrelated and overlapping questions all in some form or fashion seek to reveal
the contingent nature of security. Critical approaches to security consider it a socially
constructed concept; it has a specific meaning within a specific social context.
Traditional security studies, in privileging the state and the use of force, is complicit in
masking the inherent contextual complexity of security. By naming a certain
development a security problem, the state claims a special right to intervene. In
intervening, the tools applied by the state would look very much like those used during
the wars the state might launch if it chose to do so (Waever, 1995). As James Der Derian
argues: “We have inherited an ontotheology of security, that is, an a priori argument that
proves the existence and necessity of only one form of security because there currently
happens to be a widespread, metaphysical belief in it” (Der Derian, 1995). Critical
approaches to security have emerged due to this tendency in the traditionalist camp; the
notions of broadening, deepening, and opening are a result of this. As argued earlier,
there is great diversity among various critical approaches within security. While I am
unable to engage in a comprehensive analysis of each unique theory/framework, I will
address the following approaches: (1) Post- colonialism; (2) Human Security; (3) Critical
Security Studies; (4) Feminism; (5) Copenhagen School; and (6) Post-structuralism.
Each approach challenges the state-centric nature of traditional security studies, and
contributes in its own unique fashion to broadening and deepening (and opening in some
cases) the field.
Post-colonialism
Post-colonial theory, or post-colonialism comprises a broad range of perspectives;
one such body of thought overlaps with social theory and historical sociology in pointing
to the need for conceptualizations of security that acknowledged the specificity of the
Third World (or global South) (Grovogui, 2007). Those that work within the postcolonial
tradition writ large contend that state-centric approaches perpetuated by traditionalist
realist approaches are based on a particular European history of state formation. Krause
(1996) states: “The European state had been built on an understanding of security as
oriented towards external threats, and rested upon a strong identification of the security of
the state with the security of its citizens.” Postcolonialism suggests that non-Western
states have followed a different trajectory of development, though this does not
necessarily qualify them as “underdeveloped” in juxtaposition to the West. Post-
colonialists argue that this inequality is a result of encounters with Western colonialism,
and that there is a recurring economic, social, and military unequal relationship between
the West and the rest (Buzan and Hansen, 2009). Post-colonial approaches to security
seek to problematize the subject/object relationship that permeates throughout traditional
security studies. Indeed, a crucial implication of post-colonialism is that a different
understanding of the non-Western subject appears, and since identity is relational, of the
West itself (Bilgin, 2008). This means that other referent objects may come into
analytical focus, but also that security itself may be constituted in distinct non-Western
terms that require the adoption of new epistemologies and methodologies (Grovogui,
2007); for example, crafting an immanent framework of security that relies on local,
particularized knowledge, thus allowing individuals to define security based on their own
experience(s).
Human Security
A prominent individual or people-centered approach to security is human security.
Human security first emerged in the 1994 United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) report; it strove to expand security along several dimensions. It isolated sever
dimensions, or areas of human security: (1) economic security; (2) food security; (3)
healthy security; (4) environmental security; (5) personal security; (6) community
security; and (7) political security. As the report states: “The logic of security should be
broadened beyond territorial defense, national interests, and nuclear deterrence to include
universal concerns and the prevention of conflicts, but also crucially a cooperative global
effort to eradicate poverty and underdevelopment (UNDP, 1994). The referent object was
shifted from states to that of people; its “people-centered” approach was to be concerned
with how people live and breathe in a society, how freely they exercise their many
choices how much access they have to market and social opportunities- and whether they
live in conflict or in peace (UNDP, 1994). Human security is predicated on eliminating
both freedom from want and freedom from fear by virtue of its broadening formula. This
implies both negative and positive obligations on the part of the state, which I believe
signals one of its weaknesses as a security concept. Human security is successful
deepening security to include threats beyond those that impact upon the state, but its
“people-centered” focus is still predicated upon individuals belonging to the state.
Responsibility to meet these security needs falls upon the state; if individuals do not
belong to the state then they are doomed to live in a constant state of insecurity. A further
critique of human security, as put for by Paris (2001) suggests that if human security
means almost anything, then it effectively means nothing. In this sense, human security
is guilty of concept-stretching; Waever echoes this sentiment in suggesting that
overreliance upon the term security serves to treat it as an “universal good thing.”
However, human security’s potential lies in its academic and policy utility. The coupling
of human security to a “humanitarian foreign policy” modifies the realist understanding
of the state as concerned exclusively with territorial defense and national interests
(Surhke, 1999). While it may be guilty of reifying the primacy of state as a
“security actor,” it does expand the scope of responsibilities/obligations the state is
expected to fulfill by considering the needs of those individuals that comprise it.
Critical Security Studies
Critical Security Studies, much like human security, is concerned with people as
opposed to states. Also, it envisages a more just, peaceful world order that human
security strives to bring into existence (Buzan and Hansen 2009). Critical Security
Studies is typically identified as the Frankfurt School inspired work by Ken Booth and
Wyn Jones and their Aberystwyth students and collaborators. Conceptually, Critical
Security Studies argues that individual humans are the ultimate referent for security, as
states are unreliable providers of security and too diverse to provide for a comprehensive
theory of security (Booth, 1991). The call for an individual referent object is linked to an
empirical-political assessment of interstate war as far less real and threatening than
environmental security, food security and economic security, and to a view of the vast
majority of states as generating insecurity rather than stability and prosperity (Jones,
1995). Unlike human security, Critical Security Studies seeks to problematize the state as
a guarantor of security; in fact, it believes the state is in many ways incapable of securing
the individual. In line with this thinking, the concept of emancipation is central to the
project of Critical Security Studies. Emancipation functions as the goal of individual
security as well as the analytical and political engine, and is defined as the freeing of
people (as individuals and groups) from those physical and human constraints which stop
them carrying out what they would freely choose to do (Booth, 1991). Critical Security
Studies does not completely discount the state, as long as it does not impinge upon or
inhibit the realization of security on the part of the individual. Critical Security Studies
argues for both an objective and subjective definition of security: objective insofar as the
critical security theorist can determine which security problems are particularly
threatening, and subjective insofar as an individual’s own definition of security problems
is taken into account (Buzan and Hansen, 2009). Critical Security Studies has been
characterized as being vague and not offering up solutions as how to bring about its
“emancipated society,” but its conscious desire to listen to how individuals speak about
security should be seen as a strength, which is a trait it shares with feminist approaches to
security.
Feminist Security Studies
Feminist Security Studies is comprised of sub-approaches which adopt different
referent objects, epistemologies, and methodologies (Buzan and Hansen, 2009). Indeed,
feminist approaches to IR in general and security specifically are multiple, though this
does not mean that other approaches are not marked by diversity. Feminist approaches
are attentive to the “making” of security. Epistemologically speaking, feminists have
long recognized that whatever knowledge may ostensibly be about, it is always in part
about the relationships between the knower and known (Sjoberg, 2009). In other words,
knowledge is viewed relationally- it is necessarily contextual, contingent, and interested.
This attentiveness to “knower” and “known” speaks to the primacy of experience.
Experience on the one hand is a concept that promises a direct link to (marginalized)
subjects’ everyday lives and to a deeply subjective, narrative, and often emotion form of
knowledge. Yet this subject is on the other hand constituted through a gendered structure:
it is only conceivable as a gendered experience if gender is already accepted as a frame of
reference (Buzan and Hansen, 2009). As Joan Scott (1992) argues: “experience leads us
to take the existence of individuals for granted (experience is something people have)
rather than to ask how conceptions of selves (of subjects and their identities) are
produced.” Indeed, treating security as a given can mask the differential experiences of
women (and marginalized populations in general); identity and security serve to
(re)produce the other and separating them runs the risk of reifying a singular
conception/understanding of security. In traditional security studies, the state plays a
central role in the production of this identity/security nexus. However, from a feminist
perspective, the state can be seen as misleading construction that purports to protect its
citizens but often perpetuates the subordination of women (True, 1996). In place of the
focus on state security, feminists have suggested an approach to security that begins its
analysis at the margins of social and political life (Ackerly et. al, 2001). Rendering
problematic both state and security, feminist analyses are able to exhibit the gendered
foundations that each are built upon, and by virtue of doing so, begin to craft a more
inclusive conception of security.
Copenhagen School
The Copenhagen School constitutes another approach that seeks to render
problematic the logic of security; it is primarily concerned with the discursive/linguistic
construction of security. To this end, it focuses on the process of securitization, which is
when an issue is presented in security terms, which is to mean an issue is presented as an
existential threat. A “securitizing move” is made by an actor that frames an issue as
constituting a threat to ontological security by virtue of making a “speech act.” A speech
act is made by a legitimate actor (typically representing the state, but not always), and if
the act is accepted by the audience to whom the actor is speaking, the process of
securitization is complete. The very act of speaking in security terms is important here;
the speech act is not interesting as a sign referring to something more real, it is the
utterance itself that is the act. By saying the words, something is done (Buzan et. al, 26).
In this sense, security becomes a self-referential practice; something becomes a security
threat because it is presented as such. Waever warns against this practice; “security
should not be thought of as always a good thing. It is better to aim for desecuritization:
the shifting of issues out of emergency mode and into the normal bargaining processes of
the political sphere” (Buzan et al., 4).
In its effort to “rethink” security, the Copenhagen School separates security into
separate “sectors:” (1) Military; (2) Environmental; (3) Economic; (4) Societal; and (5)
Political. These are not ontologically separate realms, meaning each appears in others, at
varying levels of strength (Buzan et al., 168). The logic of such a move is to shift
security away from a state-centric approach found in traditional security studies, but
critics of the Copenhagen School contend that it does not move far enough in the
direction of real people in real places, that it mistakenly ties together security and
survival, and that it is state-centric, elite-centric, discourse-dominated, conservative,
politically passive, and neither progressive nor radical (Booth, 2005). These critical
points are well-taken. For example, environmental issues are constructed as security
threats, but they are typically linked to the state. If a climate change facilitated disaster
results in entire populations being displaced, the discourse of security inherent in the
Copenhagen School defines them as “sources of insecurity,” not suffering from insecurity
themselves. This is due to the overwhelming power/resonance of the state and military
sector. The state is incapable of “combating” environmental disasters in a non-military
manner. Additionally, the logic of the speech act is predicated upon access to power; an
actor must have legitimacy/credibility to securitize an issue. Returning to our
environmental disaster example, those that suffer as a result are unable to properly
securitize it, as their narrative(s) of insecurity do not emanate from a platform of power.
This speaks to Hansen’s critique of the Copenhagen School, which she terms the “silent
security dilemma.” Security as silence occurs when the potential subject of (in)security
has no, or limited, possibility of speaking security problems (Hansen, 2000).
Furthermore, Wilkinson (2007) argues that security as silence points more generally to an
unacknowledged Western-centric assumption in securitization theory, in that it
presupposes the possibility of free speech and political structures that guarantee
individuals protection against random as well as systematic violence. The Copenhagen
School is guilty of associating security with danger, and its reliance on speech act theory
is complicit in foreclosing the possibility of hearing alternative “security narratives.”
Their call for desecuritization is well taken, but the approach is still undergirded by
acceptance of the state as the actor through which efforts at guaranteeing security are
undertaken.
Poststructuralism
The well-documented state-centric nature of traditional security studies is
arguably most heavily critiqued by poststructuralism. During the Cold War,
posstructuralism was highly critical of the state-centric military conception of security
held by traditional security studies, which was marked by a lack of problematization of
the historical, normative, and political implications that are embedded in security (Buzan
and Hansen, 2009). The most important challenge poststructuralism faced coming out of
the Cold War was whether states needed enemies. Campbell (1992) discusses
“discourses of danger” in the seminal work Writing Security. In this work, he
foregrounds importance of the “Other-“ that is the construction of states, groups and other
non-Selves- arguing that while state identity could in principle be constituted through
relations of difference, in reality the pressure to turn difference into radical, threatening
Otherness was overwhelming (Campbell, 1992). Security thus became an ontological
double requirement: the state needed to be secure, but it also needed the threatening
Other to define its identity, thereby giving it ontological security (Campbell, 1992). Once
again, this paints a relational picture of security; it is a concept that can only exist by
treating its necessary concomitants of insecurity and danger. Seemingly, without the
“Other,” the “Self” cannot exist. However, critics of the poststructuralist
conceptualization of security point to its dependency upon the construction of identity,
arguing that if identity is given, then security would be as well, thus linking them to a
more traditional understanding of security. I argue that this is a mischaracterization of
postructuralism; it does not treat identity as given, rather it argues that security is
conceived in relation to identity; this does not suggest dependency per se. The
identity/security nexus is predicated upon difference, which is used to justify/legitimate
action on the part of the “Self” against “Other.” Weber (1994) showed that those
intervening legitimated their actions by arguing that these were made on behalf of ‘the
people’ of the Other state to protect it from its government and thus that Western states
had a proclivity for constituting their security policies inside a moral and value-based
discourse. Poststructuralists have argued that the central Other was no longer a radically
different threat, but a humanitarian ‘victim’ in need of a ‘rescue,’ but that this subject
construction depoliticized the conflicts and allowed the West the appearance of ‘doing
something’ without fundamentally acknowledging its responsibility (Campbell, 1998).
In effect, this denies agency to the “Other,” they are constructed as weak and incapable of
achieving its own security without assistance from the “Self.” Poststructuralism thus
reveals the subject/object binary distinction that traditional security studies is built upon,
which thereby questions the efficacy of the state as “security guarantor.”
In tracing the various critical approaches to security, I have attempted to elucidate
the ontological and epistemological differences that set them off from traditional security
studies. In so doing, revealing the content and scope of security inherent in traditional
security studies exemplifies the danger/violence of foreclosing alternative avenues of
inquiry. Treating both states and security as ontologically given inhibits the ability to
imagine security as a holistic phenomenon. Under the purview of this study, alternative
conceptions are of vital importance for pushing the methodological boundaries of security
studies. Envisioning security as narrative(s) requires attending to the discursive nature of
security; it is (re)produced by a multiplicity of actors and therefore becomes contextual
and contingent. To this end, a discourse analysis of the RtoP doctrine and related
document is appropriate for our investigation of security narratives. Discourse analysis
examines narratives used to discuss issues and assumes that the language used in turn
shapes the nature of politics within an issue area; in our case, security (Hajer, 2006). I
will briefly address the further importance of discourses(s) in the methodology section, as
well as discussing the importance of feminist approach to security narratives, which
guides the overall analysis of this study.
Methodology
As was previously articulated, the method of analysis this paper shall employ is
discourse analysis. First, a discourse analysis will be conducted on RtoP related
documents. These documents include: (1) International Commission on Intervention and
State Sovereignty report entitled The Responsibility to Protect (2001); (2) UN HighLevel
Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change report called A More Secure World:
Our Shared Responsibility (2004); (3) UN Secretary-General report In Larger Freedom:
Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All (2005); and (4) the General
Assembly Outcome Document (2005). The case studies of Sudan and Sri Lanka will
entail discourse analyses of RtoP-related documents pertaining to each case. These
documents include: (1) United Nations Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS); (2) African
Union/United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID); (3) United Nations
Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS); (4) International Crisis Group Policy
Briefing; (5) International Coalition of the Responsibility to Protect: Crisis in Sudan; (6)
International Crisis Group Policy Briefing; and (7) Refugees International Field Report;
(8) Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka;
(9) International Crisis Group: War Crimes in Sri Lanka; and (10) International
Coalition on Responsibility to Protect- Sri Lanka. Utilizing discourse analysis to push
the boundaries of security reflects the shared assumption of feminist research that
women’s lives (or marginalized populations in general) are important (Reinharz, 1992).
Oftentimes, security for one actor results in insecurity for another actor. Bringing in
alternative discourses/narratives of security will allow for an expansion of security that
takes into all types of knowledge and refuses to accept “common sense” assumptions.
Before proceeding onto my explanation of the need for discourse analysis and the
importance of security narratives, I will briefly address the history of the Responsibility
to Protect, and why it matters for my analysis of security.
The emergence of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine is a relatively recent one.
Its origin the 2001 ICISS report The Responsibility to Protect. The central theme of this
report was: “the idea that sovereign states have a responsibility to protect their own
citizens from avoidable catastrophe- from mass murder and rape, from starvation- but
that when they are unwilling or unable to do so, that responsibility must be borne by the
broader community of states” (Stahn, 2007: 99). The UN High-Level Panel even spoke
of an emerging norm of a collective international responsibility to protect, which
encompasses not only the right to intervene of any state, but the responsibility to protect
of every state when it comes to people suffering from avoidable catastrophe (emphasis
added) (Stahn, 2007: 100). Under RtoP, state sovereignty is no longer treated as an
absolute right. Matters affecting the life of the citizens and subjects of states are no
longer exclusively subject to discretion of the domestic ruler but are perceived as issues
of concern to the broader international community (e.g. third states, multilateral
institutions, and nonstate actors) (Stahn, 2007: 101).
It is this component of RtoP that is problematic for security, and why I have
chosen to make it the focus of my analysis. State sovereignty defines what peace can be
and where peace can be secured: the unitary community within autonomous states.
Consequently, it also defines a place where neither peace nor security is possible for very
long: the noncommunity of contingencies, Others, and mere relations outside the
boundaries of the state (Walker, 1997). While RtoP imposes limits upon state
sovereignty, for events to be treated as “security,” they must occur in relation to the state.
It does not privilege state security over individual security, but it does function to
reproduce the centrality of the state to security in that individuals must belong to the state
in order to enjoy security. As Walker elucidates, the state has served as the form of
political life that has made it possible for us to imagine what security, or insecurity, could
possibly mean (Walker, 1997). Examining RtoP will shed light on where it fits into the
broader security discourse, and how it is influence by traditional understandings of
security, and serves to reproduce them.
Discourses help to set the boundaries of accepted meaning, which has profound
implications for security studies. The ability to define security provides not just access to
resources but also the authority to articulate new definitions and discourses of security.
Liftin (1999) suggests: “as determinants of what can and cannot be thought, discourses
delimit the range of policy options, thereby functioning as precursors to policy outcomes.
The supreme power is the power to delineate the boundaries of thought- an attribute not
so much of specific agents as it is of discursive practices” (Liftin, 1999). Hajer (1995)
reflects this sentiment in suggesting that: “discourses can be thought of as specific
ensembles of ideas, concepts and categorization that are produced, reproduced and
transformed in a particular set of practices and through which meaning is given to
physical and social realities.” Two definitions of discourse analysis guide the
methodological premises of this project. One definition states that discourse analysis is
an attempt to identify and describe regularities in the methods used by participants as
they construct the discourse through which they establish the character of their actions
and the beliefs in the course of interaction (Gilbert and Mulkay, 1984). The second
primary definition of discourse analysis that guides my analysis suggests it is the
examination of argumentative structure in documents and other written or spoken
statements as well as the practices through which utterances are made (van den Brink and
Metze, 2006).
If the international system is indeed “ideas all the way down,” attention to
discourses and narratives possesses vital import for the study of international politics.
Haas (2004) argues that: “discourses impart meaning to an ambiguous policy domain.
Discourses are important because they institutionalize cognitive frames. They identify
issues as problems, set agendas, and define the salient aspects of issues as problems for
decision-makers.” The relation of discourses to security has broad implications. The
primacy of state security has evolved out of the understanding/claim that the state has a
legitimate monopoly on authority and the use of violence. This claim has succeeded in
marginalizing and even erasing other expressions of political identity and other answers
to questions about who we are (Walker, 1997). Thus, the purported primacy of the state
functions to make and continually remake security. Indeed, as Walker argues further:
“to speak security is to engage in a discourse of repetitions, to affirm over and over again
the dangers that legitimize the sovereign authority that is constituted precisely as a
solution to dangers” (Walker, 1997: 73). Attention to dominant narratives of will enable a
closer reading of the Responsibility to Protect as a security narrative. The process of
discourse analysis involves tracing the storylines that make up the larger discourse. A
storyline is a set of concepts, ideas, or themes that are repeated and combine to form a
discourse (Hajer, 2006). This process will help reveal how the Responsibility to Protect
doctrine, despite its potential, conforms to the dominant narrative of (state) security
within traditional security studies. Challenging the hegemony of traditional security
studies opens up possibilities for listening to “counter narratives” of security. Feminist
security studies is uniquely equipped to accomplish such a task.
Feminist security studies focus on narrative(s) hones in on both form and content.
In the introduction, I identified Wibben’s four elements of traditional security narratives.
Wibben (2007) argues that while critical security narratives shift the content, they do
nothing to alter the form; in essence, they are “repackaging the same material.” Feminist
security narratives not only want to broaden and deepen security studies, they strive to
“open” the field as well. Opening the agenda of security studies requires understanding
how security has traditionally operated and how meanings have become fixed in certain
narratives (Huysman, 1998). Every privileging of one narrative over another
(re)establishes that very social order which sets out particular, historically specific
accounts of what counts as politics and defines other areas as not politics (Edkins, 1999).
The process of relying upon a singular security narrative can mask difference, and is also
capable of producing violence/danger for those populations to whom the narrative does
not fit. For example, Mayan women fell outside the boundaries of the Guatemalan state
during its civil war that raged during the 1970s into the early 1990s; thus making them
the “other” and not entitled to “protection” from the Guatemalan state (Stern, 2005).
Also, the security situation of Tamil women became doubly problematic during civil war
in Sri Lanka when some decided to “transgress” cultural boundaries and become soldiers.
Their security was thus affected by their role as soldiers fighting in battle, and their
decision to occupy “abnormal” roles within their own community (Tambiah, 2005).
Finally, the experiences of African-American women/mothers in post- 9/11 United States
of America reveal that their daily security situation in no way changed. They still faced
the same challenges that they did in the pre-9/11 world; for them, there was no “before”
and “after,” only more of the same (Mattingly et al., 2002). Tickner (2005) suggests that
pursuing social change involves uncovering “practical knowledge” from people’s
everyday lives. Adopting a feminist approach to security studies, and engaging and
reading counter-narratives reflects this goal; questioning/challenging traditional security
studies reflects Waever’s admonition of not accepting security as a universal good thing.
Considering feminist security narratives will help to bring forth a more progressive,
reflexive understanding of security.
Organization of Project
This shall be undertaken in Chapter Two. Additionally, I will carry out a
discourse analysis of two cases involving the RtoP doctrine; these case studies shall be
Sri Lanka and Sudan. First, selection of these particular cases affords geographical
variation to the analysis. Furthermore, there is significant variation in the quality/makeup
of the conflicts in these two countries that led to invocation of the RtoP doctrine. Sri
Lanka involves two (relatively) well-defined actors, Sinhalese and Tamils, which are
fighting over territory. The case of Sudan is more complicated, as it involves multiple
state and non-state actors, as well as the generation of vast inflows and outflows of
refugees; my case studies will appear in Chapters Three and Four. To this end, thick
description and interpretation are end goals; understanding the RtoP as a security
narrative and the implications it has for these cases is one of the desired outcomes of this
paper. Finally, in my conclusion, I hope to address the prospect for continued critical
engagement with security studies in general, and feminist approaches in particular.
Finally, in the conclusion, I will provide tentative answers to the questions in the
introduction. The third question is of special import/interest: Is the RtoP doctrine built
upon a gendered understanding of security, thus masking/silencing alternative
understandings/claims of security? I hope to contribute to the broader feminist security
studies literature that has among other things, served to: (1) question the supposed
nonexistence of and irrelevance of women in international security politics; (2)
interrogate the extent to which women are secured by state protection in times of war and
peace; (3) contest discourses where women are linked unreflectively with peace; and (4)
critique the assumption that gendered security practices address only women (Sjoberg,
2009). Ultimately, I believe engaging in a feminist analysis of security studies/narratives
subverts the primacy of traditional security studies, and enables a richer understanding of
security to emerge.
Chapter 2
Discourse Analysis of the Responsibility to Protect
The issue of human protection is a controversial and multifaceted dilemma that is
increasingly at the forefront of international relations. Forty nine years after the
conclusion of World War II, and one of the worst genocidal massacres in human history,
the world’s consciousness was once again shaken by the events that transpired in
Rwanda. A year later, ethnic cleansing in Srebrenica was undertaken by Serbian forces.
Power (2002), in her study of American responses, or lack thereof, asks why
interventions to stop genocide are so rare. Events such as Rwanda and Srebrenica (and
many others) bring to bear the so-called right of humanitarian intervention, asking when
it is appropriate for states to take coercive- and in particular- military action against
another state for the purpose of protecting people at risk in that other state. This right is
often at loggerheads with the idea of sovereignty, another foundational hallmark of
international relations. Two principal meanings are attributed to sovereignty: (1) the
right of ownership, or legal sovereignty, and (2) the jurisdiction and control which a state
may exercise over territory, regardless of the question of where ultimate title to the
territory may lie (Orford, 2011). Of primary importance to this analysis is the second
conception of sovereignty; the idea that states have exclusive control over what occurs
within its boundaries, and is free from outside interference of other states. Its importance
is crucial; it is far from absolute, as evidenced by events such as Rwanda and Srebrenica.
States have a responsibility for what happens within their borders, and if they prove
unable or unwilling to exercise this obligation, then the right to sovereignty is in essence
relinquished. Critics of humanitarian intervention counter that is an abridgement of
states’ rights, that it constitutes an attack on the right to sovereignty. Former UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan calls into question the claims of these critics by posing the
question: “if humanitarian intervention is indeed an unacceptable assault on sovereignty,
how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica- to gross and systematic violations
of human rights that affect every precept of our common humanity” (ICISS Report,
foreword)? How indeed is an appropriate query. The right of humanitarian intervention
has begun shifting towards a responsibility to protect, which empowers states and the
international community to intervene when egregious human rights violations, such as the
ones witnessed in Rwanda and Srebrenica, are transpiring. It is to the idea of a
responsibility to protect that I turn to next.
This chapter uses discourse analysis to examine the central narratives associated
with the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. The “core” documents involved are: (1)
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty report entitled The
Responsibility to Protect (2001); (2) UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and
Change report called A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility (2004); (3) UN
Secretary-General report In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and
Human Rights for All (2005); and (4) the General Assembly Outcome Document (2005)
(Weiss, 2004; Evans and Sahnoun, 2002; Evans, 2012; Chandler, 2007; Stahn, 2007;
Bellamy, 2009) (Refer to Table 1 for further description of the documents).
Table 1: “Core” Responsibility to Protect documents
Document title
Actor/Organization/Author
Purpose of document
The Responsibility to
Protect
International Commission on
Intervention and State
Sovereignty
Articulates the principles,
foundations, elements, and
priorities of RtoP. Also,
defines the
principles/threshold for
military intervention under
auspices of RtoP.
A More Secure World:
Our Shared Responsibility
United Nations; High-Level
Panel on Threats, Challenges,
and Change
Articulates the need for a
collective security
framework, and identifies
emergent “threats.”
Defines the role that the
UN and Member states
should take on to meet
these threats.
World Summit Outcome
document
United Nations; General
Assembly
Further defines RtoP, and
assists in the
operationalization of the
norm. Articulates under
what circumstances RtoP is
to apply, and the role that
the UN and Member states
have with respect to RtoP.
In Larger Freedom:
Towards Development,
Security, and Human
Rights for All
United Nations;
SecretaryGeneral
Further confirms the need
for a collective security
framework to address the
challenges of ensuring
development, security, and
human rights. Implicitly
suggests that RtoP provides
one such “tool” to meet the
aforementioned
responsibilities.
The process of discourse analysis involves tracing the storylines that make up a
larger discourse; in this case, security. A storyline is a set of concepts, ideas, or themes
that are repeated and combine to form a discourse. According to Lovell et al. (2009: 92):
“storylines structure the overall terms of the debate, and set limits on what practices and
solutions are deemed to be suitable and reasonable.” The importance of storyline and
narrative is fundamental to my analysis, as it establishes the parameters of what can be
known. Human beings are homo fabulans (Currie, 1998); we are tellers and interpreters
of narrative. Oftentimes, a singular narrative assumes primacy over all others; this is why
a discourse analysis of the RtoP is appropriate; it will afford us the opportunity to listen
how it talks about security, and where silences/marginalization occur.
Critical approaches to security are concerned with what is meant by security, and
how meaning(s) can function to silence or obscure alternative understandings. Krause
and Williams (1997) argue contemporary debates over the nature of security often depend
on unvoiced assumptions and deeper theoretical issues concerning to what and to whom
the term security refers. Dalby (1997) echoes this sentiment in arguing that security is a
contested term, one with multiple meanings, some of which are not at all necessarily
logically linked to conventional understandings. Feminist investigations of security, such
as in the work of Enloe (1989), challenge the conventional focus of states as autonomous
actors and raise the difficult question of what is being secured in the provision of security
as conventionally defined. Stern (2006) raises identity considerations in relation to
security:
Attempts to secure of ‘who we are’ invite violence when these notions
are not shared by members of the community in question, when ‘who
we are’ must be forcibly instilled through disciplinary tactics, when
‘who we are’ also depends on belligerently defining and even killing
‘who we are not’ (Stern, 2006: 186).
Gender is a prominent “identity” that is often left untreated in conventional security
studies. Peterson and Runyan (1993) posit that gender as a unit of analysis should be
viewed as a socially learned behavior and expectations that distinguish between
masculinity and femininity. Ticker (2002) suggests that gender identity as social
construction is malleable over time and place, thus allowing for the possibility over time
and place. Taking identity seriously in relation to security requires redefining power in
relational terms, where the survival of one depends on the well-being of the other, thus
not only enhancing women’s security, but that of men as well, who are similarly
threatened by the a conventional gendered approach to security (Hudson, 2005).
Ultimately, the tie that binds critical approaches to security is, as Huysmans (1998)
articulates, a shifting of inquiry from ‘what does security mean?’ to ‘how does one
approach the question of the meaning of security?’ Implicit in the security/identity nexus
many of these authors are concerned by is the question of authority; approaches to
security are shaped by entities with the power to define its scope and limit.
In my discourse analysis of RtoP, I will engage/critique questions of authority. I
argue that RtoP is not clear in who is being protected, and further perpetuates the
subject/object relationship that predominates in traditional security studies. RtoP delimits
the range of events/phenomena that can be considered “security threats.” In so doing,
quotidian security threats, such as food insecurity or domestic violence are written out of
the narrative or obscured by more “large scale” threats to international peace and security,
such as genocide or ethnic cleansing. Furthermore, as some feminist security scholars
argue, to truly be critical, we must not only work to broaden and deepen the study of
security, but open it as well (Wibben, 2011). This requires challenging/altering the grand
narrative of traditional security studies. I argue that RtoP, while perhaps integrating novel
content into the security debate, retains the form of the traditional security narrative.
RtoP reifies the state as the primary referent of security, and threats as those that impinge
upon state sovereignty. In essence, security is not necessarily about defending/protecting
“vulnerable” populations, but maintaining the order and hegemony of the state system.
Additionally, RtoP has been criticized for being “gender blind” (Bellamy, 2009). I argue
that RtoP proffers a gendered conception of security by reinforcing binaries of
strong/weak and protector/victim. In so doing, it serves to deny agency, and does not
allow the “victim(s)” to speak of security in their terms. In other words, to be considered
in the realm of security requires conforming to the traditional, state-centric security
narrative. Finally, I hope to elucidate if RtoP possesses any critical potential, or whether
it has become part of the traditional security orthodoxy, much like
Christie (2010) argues human security has become.
In order to lend further understanding to RtoP as a security narrative and
accomplish my aforementioned goals, I will evaluate/critique RtoP according to a series
of storylines. The two dominant storylines that emerged during my discourse analysis are
as follows: (1) Sovereignty as responsibility, and (2) Questions of authority. RtoP
conceives, or discusses security in a manner that is consonant with these two storylines.
In tracing these storylines, I will be able to elucidate possible tensions in the meaning of
security RtoP offers, and where possible shortcomings exist. As Robinson (1987) stated:
“narrative discourse is a complex human activity caught up in all of the complexities,
struggles, ambiguities, incompleteness, and problematics of human activity” (Robinson,
1987: 288). Bloome (1998) suggests that our attention towards narratives needs to ask
not “what is a narrative,” but rather “what is being called (and not called) a narrative,
where, when, how, by whom, and for what purposes” (Bloome, 1998: 289). In other
words, intent is revealed through examination/identification of storylines/themes that
structure how we come to understand the phenomena under investigation; in this case,
security via RtoP. After treatment of the two dominant storylines present in RtoP, I will
turn my analysis to exploration of missing storylines: (1) Subject(s) of security, and (2)
Gendering of security. These two storylines are conspicuous due to their absence, and
focusing on them will further lend to a critical deconstruction of the meaning of security
present in RtoP, and the resultant implications.
The Responsibility to Protect doctrine is an emergent norm/policy concerned with
humanitarian intervention. The guiding principle of RtoP is “sovereignty as
responsibility,” which rests on a dualistic foundation of: (1) individuals have inalienable
rights, and (2) governments must protect these rights, but if they do not, the international
community has a right and duty to protect them (Bellamy, 2009). States must uphold the
rights of citizens (internal sovereignty), and behave in a manner accordant with other
states (external sovereignty). Deng et al. (1996) suggest to be legitimate, sovereignty
must demonstrate responsibility, which means at the very least ensuring a certain level of
protection for and providing the basic needs of the people (Deng et al., 27). The basic
claim of RtoP is that the authority of states and the international community is grounded
on the capacity to provide protection. However, what precisely constitutes a situation in
which protection is merited? The ICISS Report states any situation in which:
A population is suffering serious harm, as a result of internal war,
insurgency, repression or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling
or unable to halt or avert it, the principle of non-intervention yields to the
international responsibility to protect (ICISS Report, xi).
Additionally, this is also limited to situations in which the state fails to live up to its
responsibility to protect its own population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing,
and crimes against humanity, and their incitement. Stated another way, RtoP is marked
by a high threshold for intervention. Only the aforementioned crimes resulting from the
listed conditions merit invocation of RtoP. Furthermore, there are five basic criteria that
guide the possible invocation of RtoP: (1) Seriousness of threat; (2) Proper purpose; (3)
Last resort; (4) Proportional means; and (5) Balance of consequences. Finally, RtoP is
comprised of three components, or “responsibilities:” (1) responsibility to prevent; (2)
responsibility to react; and (3) responsibility to rebuild (ICISS Report: 17), though in
most of the RtoP documents, the prevention component receives the most attention.
Asking who decides and who interprets is essential to assessing the legitimacy of
RtoP, and humanitarian intervention in general. RtoP does stress the primary authority of
the state as the guarantor of protection, yet it also implies that the “international
community” has the jurisdiction to determine whether and when a government has
manifestly failed to protect its population (the threshold criterion). As will become clear
in the discourse analysis of the core RtoP documents, the term international community is
both ambiguous and limiting.
Dominant Storylines: How RtoP speaks of security
Sovereignty as Responsibility
The storyline sovereignty as responsibility first appears in the 2001 ICISS Report.
The authors of the report acknowledge that sovereignty implies a dual responsibility:
externally- to respect the sovereignty of other states, and internally, to respect the dignity
and basic rights of all the people within the state (ICISS Report, 2001: 8). In
international human rights covenants, in UN practice, and in state practice itself,
sovereignty is now understood as embracing this dual responsibility; sovereignty as
responsibility has become the minimum content of good international citizenship (ICISS
Report, 2001: 8).
The genesis of RtoP is marked by the 2001 ICISS Report. Identifying the central
tenets and guiding principles of the ICISS Report allows us to begin unpacking and
problematizing the conception of security RtoP proffers. Characterizing sovereignty as
responsibility does call into question the limits of state authority, and in fact sets out why
sovereignty is not an absolute, it also serves to instantiate the state as the primary area
where (in)security can occur. In the Report’s section on “New Security Issues,” it states:
“the most marked security phenomenon since the end of the Cold War has been the
proliferation of armed conflict within states” (ICISS Report, 2001: 4). Furthermore, the
report states:
In an interdependent world, in which security depends on a framework
of stable sovereign entities, the existence of fragile states, failing states,
states who through weakness or ill-will harbor those dangerous to
others, or states that can only maintain internal order by means of gross
human rights violations, can constitute a risk to people everywhere
(ICISS Report, 2001: 5).
Military responses to complex humanitarian emergencies remain uncomfortable
challenges for the state system; but when another ‘military intervention for human
protection purposes is required’, RtoP provides an essential framework (Weiss, 2004:
137). The commission developed the concept of RtoP in order to solve the legal and
policy dilemmas of humanitarian intervention. It was primarily concerned with the
relationship between sovereignty and intervention; specifically on how the international
community should respond to disasters like genocide. Up to this point, there were no
agreed rules for handling cases such as these. Disagreement continues about whether
there is a right of intervention, how and when it should be exercised, and under whose
authority (Evans and Sahnoun, 2002: 99). In order to solve these dilemmas, the
commission strove to recharacterize sovereignty, that is, by conceiving of it as
responsibility rather than control (Stahn, 2007: 102). The commission attempted to
distinguish the idea of RtoP from humanitarian intervention in three ways. First, it
stressed that the responsibility to protect addresses the dilemma of intervention from the
perspective of the needs of those who seek or need support, rather than from the interests
and perspectives of those who carry out such action. Second, it recognized the primary
responsibility to protect resides with the state whose people are directly affected by
conflict or massive human rights abuses, and that it is only if the state is unable or
unwilling to fulfill this responsibility, or is itself the perpetrator, that it becomes the
responsibility of the international community to act in its place. Third, and finally, the
commission expanded the conceptual parameters of the notion of intervention, declaring
that an effective response to mass atrocities requires not only reaction, but ongoing
engagement to prevent conflict and rebuild after the event (Stahn, 2007: 103). The
residual responsibility of the “international community” to intervene is activated if and
when: (1) a particular state is clearly either unwilling or unable to fulfill its responsibility
to protect; (2) a particular state is itself the actual perpetrator of crimes or atrocities; or
(3) people living outside a particular state are directly threatened by actions taking place
there (Stahn, 2007: 104).
Proponents of sovereignty as responsibility argue the best way for a vulnerable
state or one failing to protect its sovereignty is by inviting international assistance. By
instantiating this conception of sovereignty, RtoP sets out to introduce “new” language
which illuminates the existence of a broad constituency of states and civil society actors
and their concomitant responsibilities to international society when other states fail to live
up to their obligations. Sovereignty as responsibility is designed to demarcate the
boundaries of accepted involvement in the internal affairs of other states. This sentiment
is reflected in the World Summit Outcome document: “the international community
should, as appropriate, encourage and help states to exercise this responsibility and
support the United Nations in establishing an early warning capability” (World Summit
Outcome document, 2005: 138). As was stated previously, while sovereignty is not
constituted as an absolute right, it still is only to be violated in the most extreme of cases.
The international community (via the United Nations) must exercise this “sovereignty as
responsibility” through use of diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in
accordance with Chapters VI and VII of the Charter, to help protect populations from
genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity (World Summit
Outcome document, 2005: 139). These egregious violations of human rights constitute
extreme threats to international peace and security, and cannot be abided by, so the logic
goes. While sovereignty as responsibility imposes limits on acceptable and unacceptable
intrusions into states’ affairs, it simultaneously creates a narrow vision of security.
Additionally, it fosters an environment in which authority to decide is constrained, and
laden with power politics.
Authority: Who Decides?
The storyline of authority dictates who, and when, the dictates of RtoP can
justifiably be invoked. The authority to define the limits of security, and appropriate
responses, rests with states, and by extension, the international community. In the Report
of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change (henceforth will be referred
to as HLP Report), the authority of states is (re)asserted:
If there is to be a new security consensus, it must start with the
understanding that the front-line actors in dealing with all the threats
we face, new and old, continue to be individual sovereign states, whole
role and responsibilities, and right to be respected, are fully recognized
in the Charter of the United Nations. But in the twenty-first century,
more than ever before, no state can stand wholly alone. Collective
strategies, collective institutions and a sense of collective responsibility
are indispensable (HLP Report, 2004: 1).
The logic of collective security undergirds the construction of RtoP, as is evinced by this
statement. States remain the primary actors in the international system, but as RtoP
makes clear, responsibility must take on a collective hue, and can and should be exercised
by states in relation to other states. The primacy of the state is further affirmed later in
report: “It is in every State’s interest, accordingly, to cooperate with other States to
address their most pressing threats, because doing so will maximize the chances of
reciprocal cooperation to address its own threat priorities” (HLP Report, 2004: 38).
The power of RtoP rests in its ability to determine who or what is need of
protecting. Grounding authority on the capacity to protect does tend to privilege certain
kinds of institutions and certain forms of actions over others. For Carl Schmitt, the
question of who is able to guarantee protection is the core question of politics; protection
involves deciding on the exception and restoring order (Orford, 131: 2011). For RtoP to
be activated, it must be proven that a state is manifestly failing to protect its population.
In order to establish this is the case, those with the authority to speak must do so in terms
that make the conflict in question intelligible in terms of genocide or other mass
atrocities, thus satisfying the threshold criteria of RtoP. This is reminiscent of the
“speech act” advanced by the Copenhagen School. The speech act is part of the broader
securitization process in which an issue is presented as an existential threat, requiring
emergency measures and justifying actions outside the normal bounds of political
procedure (Buzan et al., 1998: 24). The framing of an issue as a security threat
constitutes a securitizing move, but to complete the process of securitization, the
audience to whom the speech act is directed must accept it as such. There must be a
communication link between the securitizer and audience; in this manner, the securitizer
is able to establish the parameters of the narrative, and the audience chooses whether or
not it shall be accepted. If no signs of acceptance exist, we can only speak of a
securitizing move, as the process of securitization was not completed (Buzan et al., 1998:
26). In this sense, authority is grounded in the consent of the people (Orford, 2011: 158).
However, the ability to define security is power in and of itself; it is important to recognize
the privilege that accompanies this ability, and the implications for authority. In
upholding the primacy of the state, and the priority of security threats that impinge upon it,
RtoP takes as a given that physical space exists as a series of defined and bounded
territories. Each territory can be associated or identified with a sovereign (Orford, 2011).
In other words, these boundaries both shape and constrain
understandings of security. Security is the absence of threat, but only as it affects the
integrity of the state. The triumph of the territorial state as the dominant political form
globally has meant that jurisdiction and territory have come to be understood as closely
related terms (Orford, 2011). Ford argues that modern jurisdiction is indeed defined by
area. When a state fails in its responsibility to protect its population (within its area), then
and only then does the ability to dictate the terms of security move from the state to the
international community. However, the object of security still remains as the state. The
international community is purportedly acting on behalf of the population of the state in
question, but it can be argued this is because the state abrogating its responsibility
constitutes a security threat itself; the maintenance/stability of the international state system
is under duress, and must be restored to return to a state of security. In the Secretary-
General report: In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security, and Human Rights
for All, the imperative of collective action is spoken of. Specifically it
states:
If states are fragile, the peoples of the world will not enjoy the security,
development, and justice that are their right. Therefore, one of the
greatest challenges of the new millennium is to ensure that all states are
strong enough to meet the many challenges they face (SecretaryGeneral
Report, 2004: 6).
A noble and necessary aspiration for certain, but development of the state (and security by
extension) is treated as a universal good thing. Critics have argued that the prioritizing of
protection, when accompanied by the empowerment of the executive, the privileging of the
interests of private economic actors, and the expansion of policing in the name of security,
can threaten the well-being of both individuals and populations. In other words, RtoP may
prove to be counterproductive, as the interventions carried out in the name of protection
can be sources of insecurity rather than security. Building on this point, Waever argues that
security should not be thought of too easily as always a good thing. It is better to aim for
desecuritization: the shifting of issues out of emergency mode and into the normal
bargaining processes of the political sphere (Buzan et al., 1998). Invoking RtoP requires
securitizing the state; the failing state is a threat both to its own population and other states.
RtoP is constructed as a collective security venture, but it needs to be asked, are all
voices/interests accounted for in this collective security narrative?
Narratives are essential because they are a primary way by which we make sense
of the world around us, produce meanings, articulate intentions, and legitimate actions.
Narratives, as such, are sites of the exercise of power; through narratives, we not only
investigate but also invent an order for the world. They police our imagination by taming
aspirations and adjusting desires to social reality (though narratives can also be disruptive
when they do not “fit” into a particular social, political, or symbolic order) (Wibben,
2011). The question of narrative construction with respect to RtoP is an essential one.
Returning to an earlier notion, the primary responsibility to protect lies with states, and if
states “manifestly fail” to carry about this obligation, the responsibility is then borne by
the international community (via the United Nations). RtoP is designed to respond to,
and in many ways, prevent the previously identified human rights violations (genocide,
ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity). In essence, it seeks to
inculcate a “culture of prevention” in the international community. In fact, the ICISS
Report states this much:
Underlying all the specifics, what is necessary is for the international
community to change its basic mindset from a “culture of reaction” to
that of a “culture of prevention.” To create such a culture will mean, as
the Secretary-General reminds us, setting standards for accountability
of member states and contributing to the establishing of prevention
practices at the local, national, regional and global levels (ICISS
Report, 2001: 27).
However, what is left critically unengaged is who is creating this “culture of prevention”
and thus ensuring the efficacy of RtoP.
Central to the collective security system envisaged by RtoP and the shaping of a
culture of prevention is Article 51 of the UN Charter. Article 51 states:
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of
individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a
Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken
measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.
Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense
shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in
any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council
under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems
necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and
security (UN Charter).
Article 51 is also central to the construction of the security narrative in that it identifies
the Security Council as the “collective voice” for security. The HLP Report states:
The question is not whether such action can be taken: it can, by the
Security Council as the international community’s collective security
voice, at any time it deems that there is a threat to international peace
and security. The Council may well need to be prepared to be much
more proactive on these issues, taking more decisive action earlier, than
it has in the past (HLP Report, 2004: 64).
Furthermore, the report lays out this condition:
The Security Council is fully empowered under Chapter VII of the
Charter of the United Nations to address the full range of security
threats with which states are concerned. The task is not to find
alternatives to the Security Council as a source of authority but to make
the Council work better that it has (HLP Report, 2004: 65).
The Security Council is empowered to speak for the collective security system at large in
other words; it is my contention that this forecloses possibilities as to what security can
and cannot be. The Security Council is imbued with the authority to define the
parameters of the larger security narrative; to be considered in the realm of security
requires conforming to the structure of the narrative. Does the possibility exist that
voices/conceptions of security will be silenced and/or marginalized due to this fact? I
believe the answer to be yes. As I argued in the introduction to this chapter, I believe
quotidian security threats are obscured or overlooked by the threats to international peace
and security that RtoP is oriented towards preventing. This is not to suggest that
genocide and the like do not constitute threats to security; rather according to RtoP’s
current formulation, the prevention of these abuses constitutes a return to security, which
paints a very narrow picture of what security can envisioned to be. Bellamy (2009) posits
that RtoP is designed to shift discourse to emphasize “relieving human suffering” rather
than military action and the legal rights of the interveners; concomitantly, it also strives to
shift the viewpoint to that of the victims. Investigating the subject/object relationship
ever present in security studies will reveal this assertion to be, if not out rightly false, then
a loose approximation of the truth.
Missing Storylines: What RtoP leaves out
Subject(s) of Security
The decision about what protection requires in a particular time and place, and
who must make sacrifices in the name of protection remains inherently political. RtoP
asserts that the lawfulness of authority- whether of the state or international community-
flows from the factual capacity and willingness to guarantee protection to the inhabitants
of a territory. This requires identifying who/what precisely the subject of security is
(implies agency), and subsequently the object of security (implies passivity; who/what is
being protected). Walker (1997) argues:
Claims about a security dilemma tend to trade on images of ahistorical
determination, of structural necessities to which states can only respond
as they must. As expressions of the claims of the modern state, however,
modern security discourses rest on historical and political judgments.
Appeals to necessity that now flow so easily from claims about security
simply obscure the historical practices through which political
judgments are made, and made to stick (Walker, 1998: 67).
Security is far from a given; it is a social and political construction that is linked to the
development of the state. Huysman (1998) offered: “security policies open a space
within which a political community can represent and affirm itself” (Huysman, 1998:
238). If the state holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, it also possesses a
monopoly on security. As the state grows and evolves, its function and capacity does so
as well, and the discourse on security is one such tool to justify this growth in reach and
governance. The existence of security is contingent upon the identification of threats;
logically then the existence of the state is justified/secured through the identification of
enemies. To have security, we must have states, and vice versa. Campbell (1992) argues
this in his articulation of the formation of identity (as it relates to states):
“the constitution of identity is achieved through the inscription of boundaries that serve to
demarcate and “inside” from an “outside,” a “self” from an “other,” and “domestic” from
a “foreign” (Campbell, 1992: 9). Imagining the state provides a basis for defining
security as the protection from and mediation of threats that impinge upon its sovereignty.
Walker (1997) goes on further to state:
This is in large measure because states, or the absence of states, have
come to be framed not only as the source of security, or of insecurity, but
also as that form of political life that makes it possible for us to imagine
what security, or insecurity, could possibly mean (Walker, 1997: 68).
Returning to RtoP, it must be determined how it conceives of subjects(s) of security, and
consequently, objects of security. RtoP rests on the assumption that states remain the
primary medium through which change in the international system is catalyzed. It does
not discount or ignore the proliferation of non-state actors, and the effect(s) they exert on
international politics, but the language of security that RtoP speaks remains primarily
state-centric. In positing this, I am well aware of the precepts both embedded within
RtoP and expressly stated within the documents. It does in some manner seek to identify
threats to individual security and to make the individual the referent object of security.
However, in so doing, it inscribes (narrow) meaning onto the individual; it suppresses
agency, and does not listen to alternative conceptions of security. RtoP’s status as a
security narrative has profound implications for shaping the subject/object security
relationship. Security narratives are performative, constituting a particular order and its
corresponding subjects. Sheperd (2007) suggests discourses of security (which help
“found” these narratives) not only conceive of states as unitary authoritative entities
performing violence, but that these violences, in the name of security, perform states
(Sheperd, 2007). Narratives-and subjects- that do not fit the confines of this order are
relegated to the margins by authorized narratives that conform to and confirm the
dominant social, symbolic, political, and economic order (Wibben, 2011). In situations
where it becomes necessary to invoke RtoP, the security situation is deemed problematic
according to the guidelines outlined in the ICISS Report because: “in these places, the
state’s monopoly over the means of violence is lost, and violence becomes a way of life
with catastrophic consequences for civilians caught in the crossfire” (ICISS Report, 2001:
4). Additionally, ICISS is also well aware of limits human security imposes upon state
sovereignty:
Evolving international law has set many constraints on what states can
do, and not only in the realm of human rights. The emerging concept
of human security has created additional demands and expectations in
relation to the way states treat their own people (ICISS Report, 2001:
7).
In essence, the bar for state behavior has been raised by RtoP. In the very next section
however, the report states:
All that said, sovereignty does still matter. It is strongly arguable that
effective and legitimate states remain the best way to ensure that the
benefits of the internationalization of trade, investment, technology and
communication will be equitably shared. Those states which can call
upon strong regional alliances, internal peace, and a strong and
independent civil society, seem clearly best placed from globalization
(ICISS Report, 2001: 7).
It also spells out the implications for security:
And in security terms, a cohesive and peaceful international system is
far more likely to be achieved through the cooperation of effective
states, confident of their place in the world, than in an environment of
fragile, collapsed, fragmenting or generally chaotic state entities
(ICISS Report, 2001: 8).
The state is an entity that can rendered intelligible; the requirements of statehood
underscore this observation: (1) territory; (2) stable population; and (3) government.
Some accounts also include recognition by other states, but the first three conditions must
be satisfied for recognition to attain meaning. Returning to the analysis of Walker: “the
security of states dominates our understanding of what security can be, and who it can be
for, not because conflict between states is inevitable, but because other forms of political
community have been rendered almost unthinkable. The claims of states to a monopoly
of legitimate authority in a particular territory have succeeded in marginalizing and even
erasing other expressions of political identity, other answers to questions about who we
are” (Walker, 1997). These “grammars of security” are powerful insofar as they inform
how people believe they need to seek safety and avoid harm, as well as the choices that
they make based on those beliefs (Pin-Fat, 2000). According to the vision of security
envisioned by RtoP, the state functions as both subject and object of security. Its status as
subject is not absolute, as evidenced by ceding of responsibility to the international
community when it fails to live up to its obligations, but the primary authority as security
guarantor still remains with the state. Functioning as security guarantor allows it to set
the parameters of security. The state becomes the object of security under RtoP when
intervention is enacted. Intervening and stopping large scale human rights abuses
becomes the priority, and ostensibly, once this is completed, security is thus restored.
Once again, this forecloses upon the possibilities of what security can entail, what it can
be. By securitizing the state, it can logically be argued that those belonging to the state
will enjoy security as well. However, this argument treats the state as a universal good
thing, and does nothing to unpack the often tenuous relationship between state and
citizen. Feminist IR asks, among other things, how such phenomena as the state and
security might be gendered, and the implications this poses for political analysis. The
lived experiences of men and women can and do diverge; and historically, the study of IR
has ignored these qualitative difference. If survival of the state is seen as the ultimate
goal of security efforts, feminists question the quality of survival from a feminist
standpoint, especially because women’s relations to states have been historically complex
(Wibben, 2011). I ask how, and in what ways RtoP is gendered, and how it contributes
the process of gendering security.
Gendering Security
Since the emergence of RtoP in 2001 as an academic and policy
concept/phenomenon, the characterization of being “gender blind” has been omnipresent.
What precisely do we mean when we reference “gender” and “gendering?” As Jill Steans
(1998) explains: “to look at the world through gendered lenses is to focus on gender as a
particular kind of power relation, or to trace out the ways in which gender is central to
understanding international processes” (Steans, 1998: 5). Wilcox (2009) notes:
Gender symbolism describes the way in which masculine/feminine are
assigned to various dichotomies (I would suggest binaries is a more
appropriate term) that organize Western thought where both men and
women tend to place a higher value on the term which is associated
with masculinity (Wilcox, 2009: 221).
In this way, gendered social hierarchy is at once a social construction and a structural
feature of social and political life that profoundly shapes our place in, and view of, the
world. As a structural feature of social and political life, gender is a set of discourses that
represent, construct, change, and enforce social meaning (Sjoberg, 2009). As Peterson
(1992) then explains: “feminism is neither just about women, nor the addition of women
to male-stream constructions; it is about transforming ways of knowing and being as
gendered discourses are understood and transformed (Peterson, 205).” Zalewski (2006)
further explains that the driving force of feminism is its attention to gender and not simply
to women. Far too many scholars who use gender as a variable use it as a proxy for women
(or men) failing to take account of the complexity of the levels and ways that gender
operates in global politics. In my analysis of RtoP, it appears that the (minimal) references
to “gender” merely read as women; this is in need of more critical interrogation.
Furthermore, RtoP’s “gender blindness” reinforces binaries such as strong/weak and
protector/victim that serve to reify and perpetuate traditional security narratives. Before I
turn my attention to the gendering nature of RtoP, a brief discussion of gender
mainstreaming is in order, as this concept serves as a guide in many ways for the
understanding of gender in the international arena.
Any discussion of gender mainstreaming needs to begin with United Nations
Security Council Resolution 1325, which “mainstreams” gender in Security Council
operations and obligates member-states to include women in peace negotiations and
postconflict reconstruction. While the majority of provisions within Security Council
1325 are laudatory, two passages speak to the gendered nature of international conflict
and security. The first passages states: “reaffirming also the need to implement fully
international humanitarian and human rights law that protects the right of women and
girls during and after conflicts” (UNSC Resolution 1325). The second passage reads:
“calls on all parties to armed conflict to take special measures to protect women and girls
from gender-based violence, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse, and all
other forms of violence in situations of armed conflict” (UNSC Resolution 1325). In
many ways, these passages are subtle denials of agency; attending to gender-based
concerns (re)constructs women as objects of understanding/action. The body has become
politicized in effect; Ruth Ojiambo Ochieng (2006), via Amnesty International’s Stop
Violence Against Women campaign, suggests that women’s bodies have actually become
battlegrounds; the violence is all about destroying the inbuilt strength of a woman to
build a community. It is not clear that gender mainstreaming eliminates the gendered
nature of international politics. Hicks-Stiehm (2001) defines gender mainstreaming as:
“the process of assessing the implications for men and women of any planned action,
including legislation, policies, or programs in all areas and at all levels” (Hicks-Stiehm,
2001: 42). True (2003) offers that it:
Describes efforts to scrutinize and reinvent processes of policy
formulation and implementation across all issue areas and at all levels
from a gender-differentiated perspective, to address and rectify
persistent and emerging disparities between men and women (True,
2003: 369).
Ackerly (2001) asserts that gender mainstreaming strategies may accept certain norms
and institutions provisionally but challenge them at an appropriate time, thus not
precluding fundamental social change (Ackerly, 2001). Evenline and Bacchi (2005) take
a critical approach to gender mainstreaming by asking precisely what is being
“mainstreamed” when we mainstream gender? They suggest that gender be viewed as a
verb rather than a noun so the focus is on the process of gendering rather than the static
category of gender (Bacchi and Eveline, 2005). This will help align an understanding of
gender as an unfinished process with the ways in which those who make and implement
policy experience gender mainstreaming as always partial and incomplete (Bacchi and
Eveline, 2005). By focusing on the process of gendering, we can see how the body both
informs and resonates with relations of power and privilege. Returning to RtoP, the
gendering of security and its complicity in this process must be critically examined.
Bacchi (1999) states that: “meanings can congeal in ways that perpetuate
established forms of seeing, or of representing problems that instantiate the social status
quo” (Bacchi, 1999: 497). Recognizing gender as a significant dimension of identity and
security opens the door to non-state-based views of security and aptly illustrates how
identity shapes individual and collective security needs (Hoogensen and Rottem, 2004).
However, RtoP does not does this, and as Bacchi suggests, it helps to (re)create a
traditional understanding of security whereupon it is situated in the state, and individuals
are mere objects of security, and depending on the relationship to the state, may or may
recognized in security calculations. Critics of RtoP suggest that the failure to act in the
past (Rwanda for example) was due to a lack of political will, and not authority. This
remains true of not only the most extreme form of coercive reaction, the use of military
force, but also of non-military coercive action, like the application of sanctions or the
bringing of atrocity crime suspects before international criminal courts (Evans, 2007).
RtoP, and the definition of security by extension, remains prone to the vagaries of states.
By empowering states to make decisions regarding humanitarian interventions; it relies
on them enacting their responsibility to protect, and working to ensure the prevention of
future large scale human rights disasters. RtoP speaks the language of collective security,
but this remains ill-defined as the state of political category remains essential in defining
the parameters of security; as Walker suggested, it is nigh impossible to envision political
categories beyond that of the state. One such category that RtoP largely ignores,
especially as it relates to “speaking” security is the individual. Threats can be
“experienced” by the individual, but this occurs via the state. As long as the state is free
from threat, so too is the individual. Security thus becomes contingent upon belonging to
the “community,” in the case of RtoP, this refers to the state. RtoP perpetuates this
narrative of belonging/security, and becomes complicit in the gendering of security.
Bhabha and Shutter (1994) point out that women constitute the majority of world
refugees, but in western countries the political refuge is usually given to the men even if
the wives were also politically active and persecuted, and, if the husband dies they run the
risk of deportations. Limitations of recognition often impinge upon women to a greater
degree; lack of recognition (by the state) complicates women’s status as either security
subjects or objects. The state is not only capable of defining the boundaries of security; it
also dictates who is protected in its security policies/efforts. As presently constructed,
RtoP does not ultimately challenge the authority of the state; when security is restored,
authority is transferred back to the state. Ultimately, it must be asked, is RtoP capable of
radically challenging security; does it possess critical potential?
RtoP: Critical Venture, or Traditional Orthodoxy?
Robert Cox (1981) wrote that theory is always for someone and some purpose.
He distinguished between two strands of theory: problem-solving and critical.
Problemsolving theory, according to Cox, is theory which accepts the parameters of the
present order and thus helps to legitimate an unjust and deeply unequal system. Critical
theory, meanwhile, is theory that challenges the prevailing order by seeking out,
analyzing, and assisting social processes that can lead to emancipatory change (Cox,
1981: 128-129). My discourse analysis of RtoP has proceeded through poststructural
feminist lenses, which focuses on how gendered linguistic manifestations of meaning,
particularly strong/weak, rational/emotional, and public/private dichotomies, serve to
empower the masculine, marginalize the feminine, and constitute global politics
(Sjoberg, 2009). Examining RtoP in this light allows for determining how it aligns with
the traditional security narrative, which is constructed as: (1) threats that locate danger;
(2) referents to be secured; (3) agents charged with providing security; and (4) means by
which threats are contained and, so the tale is told, security provided (Wibben, 2011).
Security narratives that do not conform to this structure are not treated as security talk. I
ask whether or not RtoP conforms to this narrative structure, and whether or not it
possesses any critical potential.
Analyzing RtoP alongside human security will help elucidate its shortcomings
according to the criteria of critical theory, and how it has largely become part and parcel
of the traditional security orthodoxy. It has been said that human security provides a
framework for disparate communities to talk about issues of security in ways that were
not possible when security was understood to relate directly to the state (Christie, 2010).
However, Christie goes on further to argue that the moment has passed where human
security might have served as a heterodox challenge to mainstream security practices, and
has become part of the orthodoxy itself. According to Newman (2001), human security,
in its broadest sense, seeks to place the individual- or people collectively- as the referent
of security, rather than, although not necessarily in opposition to, institutions such as
territory and state sovereignty (Newman, 2001). This does not mean a complete break
with the state has been made; the state still remains the most effective guarantor of
security, but security has been broadened in this formulation. Human security provides
an effective framework that tells policymakers both where to look (at people inside the
state) to understand sources of conflict and what to look for in broad terms (things that
threaten, risk or impoverish people) (Christie, 2010). In adopting a human security
framework, the state (and its intermediaries) as a traditional security actor, assumes a
privileged voice in dictating who should address human security concerns and in what
manner. In essence, the “vulnerable” are denied the ability to speak of security in their
own terms. Megret (2009) argues that RtoP is predicated on a similar logic. He suggests
that RtoP fails because, despite evolutions, it is still too focused on the role of the
international community when it comes to the actual commission of atrocities. As a
result, it ends up largely neglecting the contribution that local ‘non-state actors,’ civil
society, social movements, indeed victims themselves can make to resist the commission
of atrocities (Megret, 2009). In RtoP, the “victim” is cause or object, but never actor or
subject. Orford (2011) notes:
Missing is any sense of the agency of the peoples of the states where
intervention is to be conducted. There is no sense in which these
peoples are understood to be themselves actively working to shape their
communities and their world, except to the extent of seeking the
protection of the international community (Orford, 2011: 695).
Rather than evincing an ethic of protection, RtoP could instead be reoriented towards
empowerment. An ethic of empowerment, would in Megret’s terms, (re)introduce the
idea of the victim as a subject of his or her fate, a political actor in his or her own right,
capable of harnessing unusual energies and determination to the pursuit of survival
(Megret, 2009). This would return the idea of individual agency to international relations
and security, and assist in the opening of security studies more broadly, which allows for
problematizing and questioning precisely what security is, or should be.
Ultimately, RtoP, despite the potential it does possess, fails as a critical
reorientation of security. Narrating security differently makes it possible to question the
privileging of certain types of security and to imagine ways to move beyond security
(Wibben, 2011). RtoP fails because it upholds the state/security relationship, and does
not question the basis for power residing in the state, or international community (which
functions as a proxy for the state). The act of intervening, militarily or otherwise, can
constitute/contribute to insecurity as well. Humanitarian intervention can be a useful
method, but in invoking RtoP, the questions of who decides, who interprets, and who is
being protected must be answered. The question of responsibility, and subsequently
undertaking it, is an inherently political question. Power is a thread that runs
simultaneously with responsibility, and must be questioned as well. This is the value
added of examining RtoP through poststructural feminist lenses: To confront power,
feminists need to ask: (1) how our identities are represented in and through the culture
and assigned particular categories; and (2) who or what politically represents us, speaks
and acts on our behalf (Wibben, 2011: 16). RtoP (re)creates what we can know about
security; to experience insecurity requires fitting into the security narrative that RtoP
conforms to; otherwise, one is silenced and marginalized as both security subject and
object. Drawing attention to this relationship is necessary for challenging, and opening
up the study of security.
In my following two chapters, I turn to two case studies involving RtoP: Sri
Lanka and Sudan. Similar to this chapter, I will employ a discourse analysis of the
relevant RtoP policy documents related to these two cases. I will also give a brief
historical overview of both cases in order to lend context to my case studies. The
storylines (present and missing) identified in the RtoP documents will also order the
analysis of the case studies. The storylines once again are: (1) Sovereignty as
responsibility; (2) Authority; (3) Subject(s) of security; and (4) Gendering security.
These storylines will help guide my analysis of my case studies, and will help elucidate
the importance of context with respect to RtoP. Knowledge is invariably tied up in the
relationship between the knower and known; therefore I expect the knowledge to be
gleaned from both case studies to contextual and contingent. Ultimately, the
completeness of the security narratives that emerge in Sri Lanka and Sudan via RtoP will
be determined via inspection of these storylines. What is RtoP able to “see” in Sri Lanka
and Sudan, and what does it overlook, or obfuscate? What implications are posed by this
incomplete rendering of security by RtoP, if this indeed the case; what are potential
alternatives for envisioning security? A close examination of both case studies will
hopefully enable potential answers to emerge in response to these questions.
Chapter 3
Sudan Case Study
In order to further extend the analysis of the RtoP doctrine, the following two
chapters will focus on Sudan and Sri Lanka as case studies. In the preceding chapter,
RtoP’s vision of security was revealed via its narrative construction. It was established
that it (re)produces a vision of security via what it includes, as well as what is excluded.
Understood in this manner, RtoP is not solely a “producer” of security, it is a product of a
larger security discourse that formulated around the notion of protection of a political
community of some sort, with community understood as a population with attributes in
common (Dalby, 1997). Via examination of the case studies under consideration, a better
understanding of RtoP as a security narrative will be culled. Specifically, an effort will be
made to determine whether RtoP shapes the security discourse of the cases in question, or
is itself influenced by the larger traditional security discourse, thus limiting how stories of
security are told, in Sri Lanka and Sudan, respectively.
Following Bennett and George (2005), Sri Lanka and Sudan were chosen as case
studies because they fall under the same “class,” that is to say, they are both security
cases, more specifically, security cases in the context of RtoP. Furthermore, as theory
testing is not a goal of this research, both can be described as atheoretical idiographic
case studies. Bennett and George (2005) describe this type of case study in the following
manner: “They provide good descriptions that might be used in subsequent studies for
theory building, but by themselves, such cases do not cumulate or contribute directly to
theory” (Bennett and George, 2005: 75). I disagree with Bennett and George on this
particular point. By problematizing and deconstructing traditional notions of security, I
am seeking to reveal the limits of theory built on these assumptions, and therefore am
contributing to theory building. The cases of Sudan and Sri Lanka present opportunities
for comparison that will help in challenging the aforementioned assumptions. Firstly,
while both are framed in RtoP language, Sri Lanka is not an “official” RtoP case as the
United Nations Security Council (UNSC) did not invoke the norm. Sudan, on the other
hand, is within the realm of official RtoP cases, as the RtoP norm was deployed by the
UNSC. In what way(s) does this alter or influence how security is conceived of within
these cases? Secondly, the universe of RtoP cases appears to be dominated by African
countries; Sri Lanka, as a non-African case, provides a useful point of comparison to
Sudan. Why is RtoP invoked in Sudan, but not Sri Lanka? Identifying potential points of
similarity and difference will allow for closer inspection of this question.
Both case study chapters will proceed in a similar fashion to the chapter on RtoP.
The two dominant storylines that emerged during my discourse analysis are as follows:
(1) Sovereignty as responsibility, and (2) Questions of authority. RtoP conceives, or
discusses security in a manner that is consonant with these two storylines. In tracing
these storylines, I will be able to elucidate possible tensions in the meaning of security
RtoP offers, and where possible shortcomings exist. After treatment of the two dominant
storylines present in RtoP, I will turn my analysis to exploration of missing storylines:
(1) Subject(s) of security, and (2) Gendering of security. These two storylines are
conspicuous due to their absence, and focusing on them will further lend to a critical
deconstruction of the meaning of security present in RtoP, and the resultant implications.
The documents under analysis for the Sudan case are: (1) United Nations Mission in the
Sudan (UNMIS); (2) African Union/United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur
(UNAMID); (3) United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS); (4)
International Crisis Group Policy Briefing; (5) International Coalition of the
Responsibility to Protect: Crisis in Sudan; (6) International Crisis Group Policy
Briefing; and (7) Refugees International Field Report. The discourse analysis of the Sri
Lanka case study will focus on the following documents: (1) Report of the Secretary-
General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka; (2) International Crisis
Group: War Crimes in Sri Lanka; and (3) International Coalition on Responsibility to
Protect- Sri Lanka. The inconsistency in number of documents speaks to the level of
focus each case has received in the international and non-governmental arena(s). Sri
Lanka has not been the recipient of a peacekeeping intervention in its (conflictual)
history, while Sudan/South Sudan has received three such interventions since 2005 alone.
Each of the documents under analysis is essential to understanding the construction of the
security narratives in the cases under consideration. Despite the imbalance of number of
documents, each case includes both IGO (Inter-governmental organization) documents
(United Nations in these cases) and NGO (Non-governmental organization) documents,
which will allow for an accurate representation of the two respective case studies (Refer
to Table 2 for further description of the documents).
Table 2: Sudan Case Study Documents
Document name
Actor/Organization/Author
Purpose of document
United Nations Mission in
the Sudan
United Nations; Department
of Peacekeeping Operations
Outlines the peacekeeping
mandate for intervention in
Sudan.
African Union/United
Nations Hybrid Operation
in Darfur
United Nations; African
Union; Department of
Peacekeeping Operations
Outlines the peacekeeping
mandate for intervention in
Darfur.
United Nations Mission in
the Republic of Sudan
(UNMISS
United Nations; Department
of Peacekeeping Operations
Outlines the peacekeeping
mandate for intervention in
South Sudan.
International Crisis Group
Policy Briefing- Sudan:
Defining the North-South
Border
International Crisis Group
(NGO)
Provides overview/history
of border demarcation
disputes in Sudan, and
effects upon conflict. Also
provides recommendations
for solving issue in a way
that will not catalyze
further violence.
International Coalition of
the Responsibility to
Protect: Crisis in Sudan
Coalition of various NGOs
working on RtoP issues
Provides an overview of
the events in Sudan, and
why RtoP is necessary for
ending violence.
Refugees International
Field Report- Sudan:
Preventing Violence and
Statelessness as
Referendum Approaches
Refugees International (NGO)
Clarifying key issues
surrounding the run up to
referendums in Sudan.
Isolates key issues that
could potentially
exacerbate violence in
Sudan, and possible
resolutions.
Global Center for the
Responsibility to Protect-
Sudan: Fulfilling the
Responsibility to Protect
Global Center for the
Responsibility to Protect
(NGO)
Clarifying how RtoP
applies to Sudan by issuing
a coordinated call for
action to prevent further
atrocities in Sudan.
To further complement/guide both case studies, a series of questions will be used to frame
the analysis: How is security being described/talked about within each respective
country’s context? What is being emphasized? What is the influence of RtoP in shaping
this narrative? What is being excluded? How is security/conflict gendered, if at all?
Finally, a brief historical analysis of each country’s conflict will be offered, in order to
lend further context to the making of security narratives, and how RtoP shapes and/or
reifies them. This chapter will focus on Sudan, while chapter four will concentrate upon
Sri Lanka.
In many ways, Sudan is the prime exemplar of RtoP. It is deemed a legitimate
RtoP case, as the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) invoked the RtoP norm.
There was no notable dissension in the process. Furthermore, multiple peacekeeping
interventions have been deployed, the protection of civilians has been mandated, and the
matter has even been referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC). However,
Bellamy (2010) contends: “In relation to Darfur, RtoP is typically rated an abject failure
in that it failed to galvanize international action or, worse, exacerbated the situation by
distracting the relevant actors” (Bellamy, 2010: 153). Defenders of RtoP point to that
most of the killing in Darfur transpired in 2003-04, prior to the world’s commitment to
RtoP in 2005. The Darfur crisis is closely intertwined with the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement (CPA), which ended a decades old civil war that claimed over two million
lives. Key interactional actors feared involvement in the Darfur crisis would jeopardize
the progress and stability of the CPA. The general complexity, both historically and
currently, complicates the application of RtoP to Sudan. Additionally, I argue that RtoP
delimits the ability to understand what security is in Sudan. RtoP, as a security narrative,
renders a limited description of security. Insecurity, implicitly, is defined as instances of
large-scale, egregious human rights abuses, namely, genocide, ethnic cleansing, war
crimes, and crimes against humanity. I ask in the introduction: Does it assume that by
stopping these egregious human rights violations, that security shall be restored? In order
to deconstruct and concurrently, make sense of how security is discussed in the context
of Sudan, I will conduct a discourse analysis of the following documents: (1) United
Nations Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS); (2) African Union/United Nations Hybrid
Operation in Darfur (UNAMID); (3) United Nations Mission in the Republic of South
Sudan (UNMISS); (4) International Crisis Group Policy Briefing; (5) International
Coalition of the Responsibility to Protect: Crisis in Sudan; (6) International Crisis Group
Policy Briefing; and (7) Refugees International Field Report. However, before I begin
my discourse analysis, a brief historical analysis of conflict in Sudan will be offered.
This will lend further context to the evolution (or devolution) of security in Sudan, and
how RtoP constructs the security narrative, and potentially, becomes subsumed by
traditional conceptions of security simultaneously.
Historical backdrop
The modern history of Sudan begins with its status as a former British colony.
During its colonial era, Sudan was divided on a North-South pattern, which has proven
central to Sudan’s violent history. After gaining independence in 1956, Sudan
experienced two periods of civil war: 1956-1972 and 1983-2003. The deadlier of the
two civil wars was the second, which pitted the Sudanese government (based in
Khartoum) against rebel groups, most prominently the Sudan’s People Liberation
Movement (SPLM), based in the south. Since 1983, violence between the North and
South has resulted in over four million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in southern
Sudan, a half million refugees, and one and half million dead
(responsibilitytoprotect.org).
Another component of the Sudan’s history is the dilemma of Darfur. Darfur
interlocks with Sudan’s history of violence and civil war, yet also is in many ways a
separate issue. Following Sudan’s independence in 1956, colonial antagonisms
developed between the conquered local elite in Darfur and the national elite in Khartoum.
Long considered a “backwater” area of Sudan, ordinary Darfurians experienced harsh
conditions and discrimination as seasonal workers on large farming schemes in central
parts of Sudan and as foot soldiers in Khartoum’s war against southern insurgencies
(Harir, 1994). Darfur also factored heavily into “Africa’s Thirty Years’ War, from the
1960s-1989, which involved Libya and Chad as the primary combatants. Libya, Chadian
opposition groups, and the Sudanese government all used Darfur as a training and
recruitment ground and as a staging area for attacking Chad (Rolandsen, 2007). The
Chad-Libya conflict was especially damaging during the 1980s, when Chadian tribes
sought refuge among related groups in Darfur (Harir, 1994). Darfur, much like Sudan
writ large, is no stranger to conflict. Moving forward in history, the current conflict in
Darfur began in 2003, when Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and then Justice and Equality
Movement (JEM) forces attacked government military installations in frustration at
decades of political marginalization and economic neglect (Johnson, 2003). The
Sudanese government’s response to this “insurgency” was to deploy some of its own
troops (notably the air force), but more significantly, arming and supporting janjaweed
militias (and umbrella term popularly encompassing outlaws/bandits, Arab tribal militias
and the Popular Defense Forces) (Bellamy and Williams, 2005). The “janjaweed”
subsequently engaged in killings, abductions, forced expulsions, systematic sexual
violence, and deliberate destruction of crops, livestock and important cultural and
religious sites. The devolution of security in Darfur led to the eventual deployment of
two United Nations peacekeeping interventions: United Nations Mission in the Sudan
(UNMIS) and United Nations/African Union Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID).
These interventions, along with the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South
Sudan (UNMISS), both shape and are shaped by the larger security narrative, and in this
way, related to RtoP. All three peacekeeping interventions were authorized to use force
under Chapter VII of the United Nations charter, and are designed to restore/rebuild the
security and human rights apparatuses of the targeted countries. Additionally, all are
further institutionalized the measures of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
Peace talks between the warring parties commenced in 2002, which led to the
signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) on January 9, 2005. The CPA
provided guidelines for a democratic transition, made provisions for April 2010
presidential elections, as well as established protocols on wealth and power-sharing
issues. It also contained peace settlements regarding contested areas, such as Abyei,
Southern Kordofan, and Blue Nile states. Arguably most importantly, the CPA granted
southern Sudanese the right to vote in two referenda on self-determination. The first
referendum , held on January 9th, 2011, was to decide on the question of southern
secession from the north. The second referendum, which was set to decide whether
Abyei would remain in northern Sudan or become part of southern Sudan, was postponed
indefinitely as a result of issues regarding voter eligibility. The first referendum,
regarding statehood for southern Sudan, passed overwhelmingly, thus the new state of
South Sudan was created, and declared independence on July 9, 2011.
It is in this context that I strive to make sense of the security narrative concerning
Sudan as it relates to RtoP. More specifically, how does RtoP as a security narrative
account for/explain the security situation in Sudan, and is it capable of addressing the
complexity that defines the situation? This chapter will proceed in a similar fashion to the
chapter on RtoP. The two dominant storylines that emerged during my discourse analysis
are as follows: (1) Sovereignty as responsibility, and (2) Questions of authority. RtoP in
Sudan conceives of, or discusses security in a manner that is consonant with these two
storylines. In tracing these storylines, I will be able to elucidate possible tensions in the
meaning of security RtoP offers, and where possible shortcomings exist. After treatment
of the two dominant storylines present in R2P, I will turn my analysis to an exploration of
the missing storylines: (1) Subject(s) of security, and (2) Gendering of security. These
two storylines are conspicuous due to their absence, and focusing on them will further
lend to a critical deconstruction of the meaning of security present in RtoP, and the
resultant implications. The questions that will help guide the discourse analysis are as
follows: How is security being described/talked about within each respective country’s
context? What is being emphasized? What is the influence of RtoP in shaping this
narrative? What is being excluded? How is security/conflict gendered, if at all and does
this influence our conceptualization of RtoP?
Dominant Storylines
Sovereignty as Responsibility
The first storyline that structures the security narrative that emerged via RtoP in
Sudan is sovereignty as responsibility. I would argue it is the dominant storyline as it
most clearly marks the failure to uphold security (or the vision of it) that RtoP addresses.
This failure is evidenced by the fact that Sudan (and South Sudan) has been the recipient
of three UN peacekeeping interventions since 2005. The deployment of peacekeeping
interventions, and the invocation of RtoP clearly indicate Sudan’s manifest failure of
obligations to protect its citizenry, and this by extension, frames Sudan as a threat to
international peace and security. The opening of the United Nations Mission in the
Sudan (UNMIS) mandate indicates as much: “having determined that the situation in
Sudan continued to constitute a threat to international peace and security, the Security
Council, by its resolution 1590 (2005) of March 24, 2005, decided to establish the
United Nations Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS, 1).” The mission was comprehensive in
that it was authorized to use force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The failure of
Sudan’s “sovereignty as responsibility” obligations is further underscored by several
passages in the mission mandate. The following “tasks” of the mandate exemplify
Sudan’s failure to honor its state obligations:
To ensure an adequate human rights presence, capacity, and expertise within
UNMIS to carry out human rights promotion, protection, and monitoring
activities (UNMIS, 2005: 1).
To facilitate and coordinate, within its capabilities and in its areas of
deployment, the voluntary return of refugees and IDPs, and
humanitarian assistance, inter alia, by helping to establish the necessary
security conditions (UNMIS, 2005: 1).
To contribute towards international efforts to protect and promote
human rights in Sudan, as well as to co-ordinate international efforts
toward the protection of civilians, with particular attention to
vulnerable groups including IDPs, returning refugees, and women and
children, within UNMIS’s capabilities and in close cooperation with
other United Nations agencies, related organizations, and
nongovernmental organizations (UNMIS, 2005: 2-3).
The basic underlying principle of RtoP, that authority of states and the international
community is grounded on the capacity to provide protection (Orford, 2010), frames and
justifies the intervening of peacekeeping forces. Sudan failed to provide adequate
protection/promotion of human rights, and by extension, security, thus necessitating
intervention on protective grounds.
The security narrative in the African Union/United Nations Hybrid operation in
Darfur (UNAMID) is structured according to the same logic. Sudan allowed the situation
in Darfur to devolve to a point where security became illusory, and was in part complicit
in this devolution. The mission of UNAMID was designed in such a way to attend to this
dilemma. Consider the following passages:
legitimate possible actions, which include, but are not limited to severance of diplomatic
relations, interruption of economic relations, or military operations.
To contribute to the restoration of necessary security conditions for the
safe provision of humanitarian assistance and to facilitate full
humanitarian access throughout Darfur (UNAMID, 2007: 1).
To contribute to the protection of civilian populations under imminent
threat of physical violence and prevent attacks against civilians, within
its capability and areas of deployment, without prejudice to the
responsibility of the Government of the Sudan (UNAMID, 2007: 1).
To contribute to a secure environment for economic reconstruction and
development, as well as the sustainable return of IDPs and refugees to
their homes (UNAMID, 2007: 1).
Linking authority and protection, which in the case of Sudan constitutes a simultaneous
failure, presents as a solution to the problem of creating political order in situations where
such order is non-existent or under threat due to internal war, insurgency, repression , or
state failure (Orford, 2010). Furthermore, proponents of “sovereignty as responsibility”
argue the best way for a vulnerable state or one failing to “protect” its sovereignty is by
inviting assistance (Bellamy, 2009). Failure can be mitigated, via RtoP for example,
though this conception of failure (and security) is still narrowly constructed.
Conceptualizing state failure is an arduous task, especially when dealing with new
or emergent states, such as South Sudan. South Sudan is not divorced from the reality of
Sudan or Darfur, but the question remains as to whether the security narrative
surrounding it mirrors what defines the “reality” in Sudan and Darfur. The United
Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS), also authorized to use force
under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, was first deployed on July 8, 2011. Similar to the
other peacekeeping mandates, UNMISS is designed mitigate failure to protect, as it
relates to human rights and security. The following “tasks” are reminiscent of those
found in UNMIS and UNAMID:
Monitor, investigate, verify, and report regularly on human rights and
potential threats against the civilian population as well as actual and
potential violations of international humanitarian and human rights law,
working as appropriate with the Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights, bringing these to the attention of the authorities as
necessary, and immediately reporting gross violations of human rights to
the UN Security Council (UNMISS, 2011: 1).
Deter violence including through proactive deployment and patrols in
areas at high risk of conflict, within its capabilities and in its areas of
deployment, protecting civilians under imminent threat of physical
violence, in particular when the Government of South Sudan is not
providing such security (UNMISS, 2011: 1).
Unlike the other mandates, UNMISS evokes a more preventive, rather than reactive,
tenor regarding its stated mission; South Sudan’s status as a new state being a primary
reason for this preventive turn. The mandate is in part designed to head off the possibility
of failure, as it is aware of the likelihood of security devolution due to surrounding
volatility. The Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect, in its report
Sudan: Fulfilling the Responsibility to Protect identifies this very potentiality:
The potential for escalation is heightened because the Government of
South Sudan’s capacity to protect populations, especially the ability to
address rising insecurity, is weak. The SPLA is similarly poorly
equipped to protect populations. Reports are emerging that the SPLA,
in some cases with the knowledge of the Government of South Sudan,
is committing crimes against civilians in areas where the opposition
enjoys political support (Global Center for the Responsibility to
Protect, 2010: 2).
UNMISS, as stated, is aware of this potential. In part, it is designed to support the
government of South Sudan in developing its capacity to provide security, establish rule
of law, and to strengthen the security and justice sectors. Returning to RtoP, this calls
into question what precisely is being protected, or secured. While human rights and
protection of civilians is referred to, the security/stability of South Sudan seems to be
privileged. This assists in reifying the state as both security object and subject; state
security equates to citizen security, which while not entirely implausible, does speak the
narrowness of the larger security narrative. In order to further elucidate the
constitution/production of security in the larger narrative in Sudan (Darfur and South
Sudan as well), the storyline “subject(s) of security must be unpacked.
Authority: Who Decides?
The storyline relating to authority helps to clarify the extent to which RtoP
applies, and how the narrative regarding security, and thus orienting action, is
determined. Determining responsibility and accountability is dependent upon the
possession of authority; ultimately, to whom can the failure to protect civilians in Sudan
be attributed to?
The logical starting point is that of the state of Sudan. As has been rendered clear,
RtoP is to be utilized in a limited number of cases, therefore, what constitutes security, or
rather, failure to provide for it, is constrained as well. The report Sudan: Fulfilling the
Responsibility to Protect makes explicit this failure:
In committing to uphold RtoP- and reaffirming pre-existing obligations
under international humanitarian and human rights law- the
Government of Sudan (GoS) accepted the primary responsibility to
protect the Sudanese population from four crimes: genocide, war
crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity (“mass
atrocities”). RtoP obligates the GoS to prevent the Sudanese armed
forces (SAF), its proxies and non-state actors from committing mass
atrocities and to halt such acts if they occur. To date, the GoS has not
only failed to protect its population from crimes perpetrated by others,
it has actively committed atrocities against its own people (Global
Center for the Responsibility to Protect, 2010: 1).
Sudan is dually held responsible, both for crimes it has committed, and crimes it has
failed to inhibit, which is consistent with RtoP. Importantly, responsibility, according to
the rigors of RtoP, cannot be solely assigned to non-state actors for the crimes they
commit. RtoP is able to be invoked, but only on the grounds that the state has failed to
stymie/eliminate the threat posed by non-state actors. This failure on the part of the state
then transfers responsibility to the ‘international community,” which assumes
responsibility regarding guaranteeing/promoting security. This transference of
responsibility/authority is exemplified by the deployment of three UN peacekeeping
interventions: UNMIS, UNAMID, and UNMISS. The report Sudan: Fulfilling the
Responsibility to Protect outlined the constitution of responsibility/authority on the part
of the international community:
Since the Government of Sudan (GoS) has manifestly failed to protect
its population, UN member states, in keeping with their 2005
commitment, have a responsibility to act at this critical juncture to
prevent mass atrocities from occurring in Sudan. This requires
governments, individually and through regional and multi-lateral
institutions, to anticipate scenarios might be perpetrated, heed the
warning signs about particular potential flash points, develop and
implement policies to avert atrocities, and establish contingency plans
to halt them should they occur (Global Center for the Responsibility to
Protect, 2010: 1).
However, this report is skeptical of the extent that the international community has lived
up to its obligations in light of failure on the part of Sudan:
Central to UN and AU efforts are the two peacekeeping missions in
Sudan: UNMIS and UNAMID. Both have broad mandates that
include the protection of civilians (POC) yet have difficulty fulfilling
these mandates. UNAMID lacks necessary support capacities
including helicopters and aerial surveillance units, and UNMIS, with
close to full troop strength, is still unable to have a presence in all of
the areas where populations are at risk in the vast region of South
Sudan (Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect, 2010: 3).
Contingency plans must be developed to rapidly respond to and halt
atrocities should prevention efforts fail. Such planning should not be
seen as pre-judging the outcome of the referendum- rather, to uphold
RtoP, UN member states to be forward thinking, anticipate potential
threats, and develop strategies to address them (Global Center for the
Responsibility to Protect, 2010: 3).
In part, this signals the failure of RtoP as a security narrative, and policy doctrine. De
Waal (2007) suggests RtoP came up short because there were no sharp lines of territorial
delineation between the parties, and there were numerous groups in possession of arms
that were commanded neither by the Sudan armed forces nor by the rebel commanders
present at the peace talks. Bellamy and Williams (2005) point to the politicized nature as
a reason for failure, in specific reference to Darfur (though possessing implications for
Sudan as a whole):
The Darfur case thus demonstrates that there is no straightforward
relationship between the West’s strategic interests and its humanitarian
concerns. Indeed, in this case the two sets of concerns seemed to pull
in different directions: strategic imperatives created a perceived need
to appease the Sudanese government as an important player in the ‘war
on terrorism,’ while humanitarian concerns suggested the need for
greater levels of coercive pressure against that government (Bellamy
and Williams, 2005: 40).
The failure of the international community to properly operationalize RtoP in Sudan is
suggestive of its inability to alter or contribute to the larger security discourse. RtoP,
while shifting the discourse of humanitarian intervention to one of
responsibility/obligation, is situated/based on a traditional conception of security. It is set
up for failure because it does not attend to quotidian security needs, which when left
unfulfilled, set the stage for the large scale human rights abuses it is designed to prevent,
or react to. Furthermore, it is built upon and upholds a gendered conception of security,
which often perpetuate (unintentionally) insecurity.
Missing Storylines
Subject(s) of Security
The subject(s) of security storyline requires engagement with what claims of
security, or insecurity, can possibly mean. To make sense of security claims must
logically be preceded by identification of the “claimant.” Walker (1997) contends:
The crucial subject of security, in short, is the subject of security. And the
crucial understanding of the subject of security focuses precisely on the
claims of the modern sovereign state to be able to define what and where
the political must be (Walker, 1997: 68).
Krause and Williams (1997) argue along similar lines. In an anarchic world where states
are the primary actor, the “security dilemma” is ever present. Accordingly, the state
becomes the primary locus of security and with this, authority and obligation. This is
what defines the boundaries of security:
Obligations between citizens represent the limit- underwritten by the
authority of the state- of effective coordination of collective action, or
community (depending on the metaphor chosen). Either way, the security
of citizens is identified with that state, and, by definition, those who stand
outside it are threats, whether potential or actual (Krause and Williams,
1997: 40).
Therefore, security is actualized through the state. RtoP is dependent upon this logic.
The narrative it (re)produces and relies upon is contingent upon state recognition;
insecurity then becomes what can be tangibly witnessed. Intervening to stop the large
scale abuses it deems security threats creates an understanding of security that is defined
by absence; in the case of RtoP, this absence would refer to genocide, ethnic cleansing,
war crimes, and crimes against humanity. However, the security narrative that RtoP is
built upon overlooks other elements of security; it does not ascribe “subject” status to a
range of actors. For example, the presence and needs of refugees/IDPs, as identified in
Refugees International’s report Sudan: Preventing Violence and Statelessness as
Referendum Approaches:
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
estimates that 400,000 IDPs, including people from the south, the Three
Areas and Darfur, live in four formal sites in Khartoum that are
recognized by national authorities. The rest of the displaced population
is spread in informal squatter settlements in Khartoum or other parts of
north Sudan. Access to formal areas is highly restricted. Even
agencies with assistance programs have difficulty getting permission
for their international staff to conduct routine monitoring visits
(Refugees International, 2010: 2).
While states have obligations to IDPs/refugees pursuant to international humanitarian
law, in reference to RtoP as a security narrative, the needs/interests of these populations is
often left out of the narrative due to the complicated relationship with the state.
Expanding the comprehensiveness of RtoP requires attending to these issues, which is
interweaved with citizenship. Sudan: Preventing Violence and Statelessness as
Referendum Approaches details this issue:
Key principles that must be pushed by the U.S. and others (regarding
citizenship status) are: (1) Choice; (2) Sufficient time to make a free
and informed decision; (3) Non-discrimination; (4) Commitment to
protecting people from statelessness (Refugees International, 2010: 4).
However, is RtoP able to account for the security needs of IDPs/refugees
due to the complicated relationship to the state? RtoP is invoked when a
state proves unable or unwilling to adhere to its obligations regarding its
citizens, but IDPs/refugees do not always belong to the state in question.
Furthermore, RtoP has limited applicability, so the insecurity suffered by
IDPs/refugees may fall outside the bounds of its parameters. Waever
(1998) argues that security should not be thought of too easily as a good
thing. It is better to aim for desecuritization, which shifts issues out of
emergency mode and into the normal bargaining processes of the
political sphere (Waever, 1998). Constructing an immanent view of
(in)security, that is from those that are experiencing it in the moment,
will help shift these issues out of the realm of “extraordinary” and into
one that is
“normal.” This process will help expand the notion of subjects of security beyond that of
solely the state, which is what RtoP intends, but ultimately fails to do.
Gendering Security
As a political concept, gender refers to the distinction made between biological
‘sex’ and socially constructed ‘gender.’ Eveline and Bacchi (2005) suggest:
Whereas sex was biological destiny, gender could be changed. The term
‘gender’ came from grammar, in which words had either a masculine or
feminine association. Feminists incorporated gender into political
analysis to identify the ways in which masculinity and femininity
influenced women’s lives (Eveline and Bacchi, 2005: 497).
While useful as a frame of reference, I am wary of the essentialization of women’s lives
implicit in this statement. By gendering security, I mean to refer to the binary distinctions
that inscribe meaning and value upon individuals and groups; such as
masculine/feminine, weak/strong, or protector/victim. The first is privileged over that of
the second, and experiences/viewpoints of the subordinate are often marginalized or
excluded. Hooper (2001) argues that these “gendered linguistic manifestations of
meaning” empower the masculine, marginalize the feminine, and constitute global
politics (Hooper, 2001). Connell (1995) suggests that gender is a structural feature of
social and political life and is a set of discourses that represent, construct, change, and
enforce social meaning (Connell, 1995). Through my discourse analysis, I seek to
explore/expose the gendered understandings of security that RtoP is predicated upon, and
upholds through practice. The storyline of gendering security thus is conscious of the
delimiting tendencies of RtoP, and its (unintended) consequences of in relation to
perpetuating insecurity, or ignoring alternative security stories/discourses.
The peacekeeping intervention mandates, UNMIS, UNAMID, and UNMISS,
constitute prominent sites where gendered notions of security occur. An outlined goal of
UNMIS is to:
To contribute towards international efforts to protect and promote human
rights in Sudan, as well as co-ordinate international efforts towards the
protection of civilians, with particular attention to vulnerable groups
including internally displaced persons, returning refugees, and women
and children, within UNMIS’s capabilities and in close cooperation with
other United Nations agencies, related organizations, and non-
governmental organizations (emphasis added) (UNMIS, 2005: 1-2).
These same gendered notions pervade both UNAMID and UNMISS as well:
To ensure an adequate human rights and gender presence capacity, and
expertise in Darfur in order to contribute to efforts to protect and
promote human rights in Darfur, with particular attention to vulnerable
groups (UNAMID, 2007: 2).
To assist in harnessing the capacity of women to participate in the
peace process, including through political representation, economic
empowerment and protection from gender-based violence (UNAMID,
2007: 3).
Support the Government of South Sudan in developing and
implementing a national disarmament, demobilization and reintegration
strategy, in cooperation with international partners with particular
attention to the special needs of women and child combatants (UNMISS,
2011: 2).
On its surface, this seems appropriate enough; distributing benefits and resources, and
including in the peace/reconstruction process historically marginalized groups is a step in
the right (policy) direction. However, this (re)instantiates the (dominant) viewpoint that
the experiences of these “vulnerable populations” are somehow different from the rest,
and require special attention in order to be incorporated into the framework of
politics/policy. Sjoberg and Peet (2012) examine civilian victimization through gendered
lenses, suggesting that it is the assertion of one belligerent’s (masculine) virility and
dominance and the revealing of another’s (feminized) inadequacy, often inscribed on
women’s bodies that defines discourses of war and civilian victimization. Women are not
solely victims in this description, but the victim is feminized, thus subordinating
“feminine” characteristics/experiences to those of the masculine. Peterson and Runyan
(1993) argue this is because: “the conception of power in IR has been dominated by
masculine-associated power-over rather than feminine-associated power-with or
empowerment” (Peterson and Runyan, 1993). The ability to shape the narrative is power
unto itself, and requires conformity with to be recognized. Overturning this and
confronting power requires asking: (1) How our identities are represented in and through
the culture and assigned particular categories, and (2) Who or what politically represents
us, speaks and act on our behalf (Wibben, 2011). Defining security requires speaking
from a position of power; to make an event one of security means framing in the
language of threat/crisis. Buzan et al. (1998) refer to this as the process of securitization:
“an issue is presented as an existential threat, requiring emergency measures and
justifying actions outside the normal bounds of political procedure” (Buzan et al., 1998:
24). RtoP does represent this process, but as a security narrative, only “securitizes” the
extraordinary, i.e. genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
When and only when do these threats arise is security in peril. RtoP as a security
narrative rests on the (gendered) presumption that the state failing its obligations (victim)
to protect its citizens is subordinate to those states that have not failed (protector), and
thus are able to rise to the occasion to restore security.
Implications/Conclusions
In reviewing key documents associated with RtoP and Sudan, I have situated the
experience of Sudan in the security narrative as evidenced via RtoP. My intention is to
demonstrate both the potential and limits of RtoP, as witnessed in the context of Sudan.
RtoP retains value in that it calls attention to an oft-neglected region of the world,
especially as it relates to foreign policy calculations. Sudan is marked by complexity and
contours that make it a difficult case to judge, yet on the surface, RtoP appears to
wellequipped to respond to these idiosyncrasies.
However, its potential is tempered by its limited applicability. The conception of
security proffered by RtoP rests on state-centric assumptions. Security is marked by the
boundaries of the state; to experience security requires well-demarcated boundaries.
Threats are thus those that impinge upon the state’s ability to honor its obligations placed
upon by its possession of sovereignty. If it fails to honor these obligations, it surrenders
this right, and faces the prospect of intervention. Threats that constitute this breach of
“contract” are as stated of a limited variety. Once these security threats are combated,
security is restored, according the RtoP’s telling of the security narrative. However, RtoP
marginalizes or excludes conceptions of security that do not fit into its narrative structure,
and additionally, rests on gendered foundations, in which the experience/viewpoint of the
victim is subordinate to that of the protector. In this vein, RtoP does not evince any
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critical potential, and accepts as given(s) the understanding(s) of traditional security
studies.
Chapter Four
Sri Lanka Case Study
As articulated in the previous chapter, the primary distinction between Sri Lanka
and Sudan in the context of this project is that Sudan constitutes an “official” RtoP case,
while Sri Lanka did not receive the designation. The case of Sri Lanka is still appropriate
for analysis as the language/rhetoric surrounding its civil war and the resultant aftermath
was imbued with RtoP-centric language. In fact, the countries of India and Norway, as
well as the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect, called for an RtoP intervention
(Bellamy, 2010). The presence of this language functioned to create a security narrative
in which the state remained the primary subject of security, and responsibility was
oriented toward first the state, and in consideration of its failure, the international
community. Though RtoP was not officially invoked, its latent presence delimited the
parameters of the security narrative, and foreclosed upon alternative conceptions of
security in Sri Lanka.
The documents under analysis in this case are again as follows: (1) Report of the
Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka; (2) International
Crisis Group: War Crimes in Sri Lanka; and (3) International Coalition on
Responsibility to Protect- Sri Lanka (Refer to Table 3 for further description of the
documents). The documents, either explicitly or implicitly, structure their analysis
around RtoP-centered language. In so doing, they serve to reproduce a state-centered
narrative of security. As in the previous chapter, the following questions will help
guide/complement the discourse analysis: How is security being described/talked about
within each respective country’s context? What is being emphasized? What is the
influence of R2P in shaping this narrative? What is being excluded? How is
security/conflict gendered, if at all? Finally, before beginning the discourse analysis, a
brief historical overview of conflict in Sri Lanka is in order to lend further context to the
case study.
Table Three: Sri Lanka Case Study Documents
Document name
Actor/Organization/Author
Purpose of document
Report of the
SecretaryGeneral’s Panel
of Experts on
Accountability in Sri
Lanka
United Nations; Secretary-
General; Panel of Experts
To evaluate the steps taken
by the Sri Lankan
government in rectifying
abuses of international
humanitarian and human
rights law. Proposes further
steps to be taken by both Sri
Lankan government and
international community to
redress these abuses.
War Crimes in Sri Lanka
International Crisis Group
(NGO)
Documents abuses of
international humanitarian
and human rights law
committed by both Sri
Lankan government and
LTTE during civil war.
Makes recommendations for
redressing abuses, and
building capacity to limit
future occurrences.
International Coalition on
the Responsibility to
Protect- Sri Lanka
Coalition of NGOs working
on RtoP issues
Provides
analysis/documentation of
abuses committed during Sri
Lankan civil war and why
RtoP should be invoked.
Historical backdrop
The violent civil war in Sri Lanka that lasted from 1983-2009 killed more than
100,000 and caused enormous amounts of suffering to both Tamil and Sinhalese civilians.
The primary combatants in this conflict were the Sri Lankan government (Sinhalese
majority) and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) (Tamil minority). A myriad
number of factors can be pointed as a “cause” of this conflict. Samuel (2001) suggests:
“Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict encompasses a complexity of issues
ranging from identity to socio-economic and political grievances and
discrimination. It is, however, predominantly a reaction to the failure
of post-independence governments to establish a political framework
that is able to reflect the ethnic plurality of Sri Lankan society and to
ensure respect for the democratic rights of all citizens” (Samuel, 2001:
186).
Sri Lanka’s colonial past cannot be discounted as a catalyzing force for many of the
divisive issues that mark its society and helped foster an environment in which conflict
could ensue. As Tambiah (2005) notes, the British governed under a “divide and rule”
policy, and upon independence, Sinhala and Tamil nationalisms were powered by
mobilization based on ethnicity and language. For example, the institution of the
Sinhala-only policy by the Sinhalese majority made Sinhala the official language, while
simultaneously marginalizing the Tamil language and displacing English, the colonial
language. Consequently, work and promotions in the state bureaucracy were stymied for
persons who were Tamil or English educated, unless they were proficient in Sinhala as
well. This, along with other discriminations, helped to stoke Tamil demands for
selfdetermination, first within a unitary state and later outside it. Full scale war broke out
following the anti-Tamil pogrom of July 1983, where Tamil homes and businesses were
looted and burned by Sinhala mobs, and several Tamils killed, with the tacit support of
certain government members (Tambiah, 2005).
The peace process that led to the eventual end of the conflict has been marked by
a series of ceasefire agreements. In December 2001, a ceasefire agreement was reached
between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE, and negotiations on a political
settlement began, mediated by the Norwegian government, though this process eventually
stalled (Allison, 2004). An example of the type of threat(s) that undermined this initial
ceasefire agreement occurred in 2004, when a female suicide bomber killed four
policemen, along with herself, in Colombo; the LTTE denied culpability, but is widely
believed to have been responsible. Officially, the LTTE, never satisfied with the terms of
the ceasefire agreement, abrogated the agreement in 2003. In 2005, Sri Lanka held a
national election, in which the Sinhala-nationalist dominated United People’s Freedom
Alliance (UPFA) won narrowly, which set the stage for the final prosecution of the war.
After the 2005 elections, both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE promised to
honor the ceasefire agreement, but both parties continued military provocations until
fullscale armed confrontation resumed again in August 2006 (UN Panel of Experts
Report,
2011). The conflict “ended” in May 2009 with a declaration of victory by the Sri Lankan
government; however, the lead up to the end of the conflict has been portrayed in the
language of “humanitarian crisis.” The devastation wrought from the war did not end
with its conclusion, and in part, sets the stage for the invocation of RtoP.
By mid-May, the United Nations estimated that 7,000 civilians, with more than
1,000 of them children, died in the escalation of hostilities that led up to the end of the
conflict. Additionally, 50,000 civilians were trapped in combat zones. The United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that as of June 19, 2009,
550,000 ethnic Tamils remained internally displaced and struggled to come to terms with
the devastation of war (responsibilitytoprotect.org). The failure of the government of Sri
Lanka to fulfill its primary responsibility to protect its population from mass human
rights violations and widespread killings prompted many advocates to consider the crisis
in Sri Lanka an RtoP situation, especially given its high death toll
(responsibilitytoprotect.org). As noted in chapter two, the ultimate
responsibility/authority to invoke RtoP rests with the United Nations Security Council
(UNSC). While Sri Lanka was discussed in RtoP-inspired language, officially, it is not
considered an RtoP case. As Bellamy (2010) notes, in reference to Sri Lanka, RtoP was
invoked/used by India, Norway, and the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect,
but not by an official body that is capable of operationalization (i.e. UNSC). Via
discourse analysis of the aforementioned documents concerning Sri Lanka’s civil war, the
question of whether this signals RtoP’s failure as a security narrative, or whether the
failure to employ RtoP in the context of Sri Lanka rests in the conception of security that
influences/shapes RtoP will be explored. However, despite lack of an official invocation,
the security narrative surrounding Sri Lanka was heavily influence by RtoP-centric
language, and thus is appropriate for analysis.
Dominant Storylines
Sovereignty as Responsibility
As a reminder, sovereignty as responsibility is marked by internal and external
dimensions. States have a responsibility to uphold the rights and protect its citizens
(internal) as well as respect the rights of other states (external). However, if a state fails
to live up to its obligations to protect its citizens and uphold rights, it forfeits its right to
sovereignty. The “sovereignty as responsibility” motif in regards to Sri Lanka was
especially prevalent in the Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on
Accountability in Sri Lanka. The overall task of the Panel is detailed, but two
components are pertinent in establishing the Sri Lankan’s government responsibility, or
lack thereof, for the atrocities that occurred during the civil war. One task of the Panel is
to:
Provide advice to the Secretary-General on the measures that Sri Lanka
has thus far taken and should, in the future take, to give effect to the
joint statement of May 23, 2009 between the Secretary-General and the
President of Sri Lanka, with specific regard to accountability, in light of
the actual nature and scope of all allegations (Panel of Experts Report,
2011: 2-3).
The language of accountability is essential for the justification of RtoP, as its invocation
is predicated upon the witnessing/proving of a state’s manifest failure to live up to its
obligations to its citizens. In this manner, accountability and responsibility must be
concurrently established. A second task of the Panel concerns this need:
The Panel views accountability as a broad process for ascertaining the
political, legal and moral responsibility of institutions and individuals
for past violations of human rights and dignity; accountability
necessarily includes the achievement of truth, justice, and reparations
for victims and is integral to a larger dynamic aimed at achieving
sustainable peace in a State after conflict. Later in this report, the Panel
elaborates on the components of accountability, as well as the views of
the Government of Sri Lanka concerning accountability (Panel of
Experts Report, 2011: 3).
The linkage between accountability and responsibility (to protect) is further alluded to
later in the report. In fact, there is an explicit attempt to frame the conflict, and the
atrocities that occurred within it, in RtoP language. Noting Sri Lanka’s commitment to
RtoP:
Additionally, Resolution 60/1 of the World Summit Outcome, adopted
in 2005 by the unanimous consensus of participating Heads of State
and Government, including Sri Lanka, reaffirms the responsibility of
States to protect their populations from war, genocide, war crimes,
ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity (Panel of Experts Report,
2011: 74).
In fact, based on the report, the threshold criterion for RtoP was met during the conflict;
that is, one of the four listed human rights abuses/crimes that warrant intervention was
committed. The report states:
The final stages and aftermath of the war in Sri Lanka were
characterized by a wide range of violations by both the Government of
Sri Lanka and the LTTE of international humanitarian law and
international human rights law, some even amounting to war crimes and
crimes against humanity. More than 300,000 people became the
victims of the reckless disregard for international norms by the warring
parties. Indeed, the conduct of the war by them represented a grave
assault on the entire regime of international law designed to protect
individual dignity during both war and peace. The victory of one side
has emboldened some to believe that these rules may now be
disregarded in the cause of fighting terrorism (Panel of Experts Report,
2011: 72).
Notable in this assessment is the identification of the possibility of war crimes and crimes
against humanity being committed. As previously identified, these abuses/crimes meet
the justificatory standard necessary for the deployment of RtoP. The security narrative
that was told/emphasized clearly both fits into the RtoP framework, and is influenced by
it, so why the failure to invoke RtoP? This is largely due to the difficulty in defining
authority within/for abuses committed during Sri Lanka’s civil war. Accountability and
responsibility, and thus authority, are conceived of in two different manners. First is the
establishment of who committed the abuses, and secondly is who is responsible for
redressing the fallout from said abuses. In the larger narrative, the notions of
accountability, responsibility, and authority are at once linked to the government of Sri
Lanka, the LTTE, and the United Nations, which leads to much confusion/complexity in
determining how to treat the abuses/crimes.
Authority: Who Decides?
The second storyline identified in the discourse analysis of RtoP documents
concerns authority, or rather, who decides. Determining responsibility and accountability
is dependent upon the possession of authority; ultimately, to whom can the failure to
protect civilians in Sri Lanka be attributed to? Under the purview of the Panel, it can be
inferred that RtoP obligations were not adhered to, though it is not expressly stated in
such terms:
The Panel firmly rejects the view that international humanitarian laws
are inappropriate for certain forms of modern warfare, including those
used in Sri Lanka. Indeed, discussion is needed to increase safeguards
to protect civilians in situations of armed conflict. In this regard,
during the final stages of the war, the United Nations political organs
and bodies failed to take actions that might have protected civilians.
Moreover, although senior international officials advocated in public
and private with the Government that it protect civilians and stop the
shelling of hospitals and United Nations or ICRC locations, in the
Panel’s view, the public use of casualty figures would have
strengthened the call for the protection of civilians while those events
in the Vanni were unfolding (Panel of Experts Report, 2011: 116).
In this sense, failure rests with the United Nations, as it did not act in accordance with the
obligations of RtoP. Sri Lanka’s failure to protect civilians, and the resultant human
rights abuses, should have activated the RtoP framework. However, the failure of the
United Nations is dependent upon Sri Lanka not living up to its obligations as a sovereign
state. In a subsection of the report entitled Alleged violations by the Government of Sri
Lanka, the possibility of the ban on attacks on civilians and civilian objects and its
possible violation is addressed:
International humanitarian law prohibits attacks on civilians and
civilian objects. Attacks may be directed only against military objects
and combatants. There is an unconditional and absolute prohibition on
the targeting of civilians in customary international law. This norm is
the most fundamental of those flowing from the principle of distinction.
In addition, parties may not direct an attack against a zone established
to shelter the wounded, the sick and civilians from the effects of
hostilities. In regard to the presence of the LTTE in the proximity of
civilians in the NFZs, international tribunals, including the ICTY, have
clarified that ban on attacks against civilians protects a population that
is “predominantly civilian,” and the presence within the civilian
population of individuals who do not come within the definition of
civilians (i.e. combatants) does not deprive the population of its civilian
character (Panel of Experts Report, 2011: 56).
Both the Sri Lankan government, as well as the LTTE, did not conduct themselves
accordingly with respect to international humanitarian and human rights law, and thus
failed to meet the minimum standard for responsible state behavior. However, under the
framework of RtoP, authority, and thus responsibility, rests with the state. The LTTE, as a
non-state actor, does not fit the standard criteria for intervention under the RtoP
framework. Crimes/abuses perpetrated by the LTTE are well-documented, but RtoP is
dependent upon/beholden to states as security guarantors. The LTTE, therefore, can be
held accountable for the commission of its crimes, but the responsibility to protect does
not lie with them, but rather, with the Sri Lankan government. Similarly, the
International Crisis Group report War Crimes in Sri Lanka struggles with the assignment
of responsibility as it relates to the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE. Regarding the
shelling of civilians in No Fire Zones (NFZs), military spokesman Brigadier Udaya
Nanayakkara was quoted: “We are not targeting this safe zone. The LTTE have moved
their weapons to the safe zone and are firing from safe zone but we don’t engage them”
(War Crimes in Sri Lanka Report, 2010: 13). The New York Times reported that
government forces were in fact targeting civilians, to which Nanayakkara responded:
“There were no civilians killed. We are targeting the LTTE. We are not targeting any
civilians so there can’t be any civilians killed” (War Crimes in Sri Lanka Report, 2011:
14). Once again, at the end of January 2009, UN staff again informed Sri Lankan
government authorities about the shelling of civilians in the NFZ and civilian casualties.
They maintained that the security forces did not shell them. The report ultimately situates
responsibility on the part of the Sri Lankan government for these attacks:
The above evidence provides reasonable grounds to believe that
individuals within the Sri Lankan security forces committed war
crimes, specifically intentionally directing attacks against civilians and
intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material,
units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance mission in
accordance with the UN Charter. Such individuals, as well as others
who ordered or assisted in the alleged crimes or are otherwise
responsible as military or civilian superiors, may be held criminally
liable (War Crimes in Sri Lanka Report, 2010: 14).
Under the purview of RtoP, the crimes allegedly committed by the LTTE, while fitting the
justificatory grounds for its invocation, cannot be used to enact action against LTTE
forces. The abuses conform to the security narrative that RtoP propagates, but
responsibility ultimately rests with the state. The LTTE, as a non-state actor, does not
possess the obligation to act as the security guarantor for citizens of Sri Lanka. In this
manner, RtoP excludes from consideration abuses/crimes that are not committed by
nonstate actors. Intervention is to be undertaken only if the state itself is failing to live up
to its obligations as security guarantor, either by victimizing its own population, or
allowing actors (such as the LTTE) to victimize its citizens. This suggests a further
limitation of RtoP. It would seem that RtoP is capable of reaction, but not prevention; in
other words, intervention can only take place after the origination of abuses/crimes that
warrant use of the principle. The War Crimes in Sri Lanka report speaks to this
difficulty:
Knowledge and intent are always difficult to prove, especially when
allegations implicate top leaders in the military and government who
may have ordered criminal acts or knew (or should have known) about
them and failed to stop them (War Crimes in Sri Lanka Report, 2010:
27).
The report concludes by implicitly invoking RtoP: “International organizations have a
responsibility to respond to allegations of war crimes” (War Crimes in Sri Lanka Report,
36). Furthermore, the inability to truly prevent, and react instead is underscored by the
statement:
The international community has a responsibility to uphold the rule of
law, the reputation of international agencies and respect for international
humanitarian law, most importantly the protection of civilians’ lives.
Many countries facilitated or permitted the conditions under which
these alleged crimes were committed. They did little to speak out
against them and even less to prevent them. Even at this late stage, they
have a responsibility to press for investigations and prosecutions as an
integral part of their efforts to support the people of Sri Lanka in
rebuilding their country (War Crimes in Sri Lanka Report, 2010: 37).
This responsibility of the international community can only be activated if proven that Sri
Lanka failed in its effort to uphold the rights and citizens and offer protection. This
process will occur after the fact, or in a situation of insecurity. Additionally, if and when
the international community responds, it is not security that results, but (in)security. The
configuration (in)security is employed to denote the contingent and multifaceted nature of
security; the cessation of large scale human rights abuses, while absolutely vital, is
treatment of the symptoms, rather than the disease. Insecurity is a perpetual possibility
without preventive and reformative action(s) being implemented. Turning the focus to
preventive and reformative action requires paying heed to not only to the macrostructural
vision of security and insecurity, but also micro vision(s) of security, or quotidian
security. Security is as much about what is not told as what is told, and efforts to reveal
missing elements of security will render a more holistic conception.
Missing Storylines
Subject(s) of Security
Security, in its traditional formulation, has been related more to states than people.
The state has been simultaneously viewed as a producer of security for its citizens, as
well as the subject of security with the establishment and retrenchment of the state-
system. Bilgin (2003) argues:
Critical voices calling for the importance of protecting human beings or
the global environment aside, twentieth-century thinking and practices
concerning security were characterized by this way of thinking. The
emphasis the United Nations has put on sovereignty and the inviolability
of territorial boundaries can be viewed as an indication of the
institutionalization of this approach (Bilgin, 2003: 203).
This argument is consistent with those advanced by such writers as Walker and Dalby, in
which security is contingent upon identification of the self (the state), and the ubiquitous
“other,” which can manifest in a number of ways, but always as a threat to the self. RtoP
largely upholds this thinking, but when the state fails to maintain security (or abrogates
its responsibilities), it surrenders its sovereignty to the international community which
then assumes the mantle of responsibility (to protect). Security thus becomes maintaining
stability of the state system; a threat to one is a threat to all.
The security narrative that emerged in Sri Lanka largely conforms to this
structure. For example, in the War Crimes in Sri Lanka report suggests:
The responsibility for seeing justice done will almost certainly fall those
outside of Sri Lanka. While LTTE leaders may be prosecuted
domestically, it is highly unlikely that government or military officials
will be brought to justice. If the increasingly unshakable culture of
impunity in Sri Lanka prevails, the deep wounds of the Tamil
community are unlikely to heal and the grievances that have fed the
conflict will not be resolved. A failure to pursue justice will almost
certainly stoke more conflict (War Crimes in Sri Lanka Report, 2010:
2).
This responsibility, as is implicitly suggested, falls on the shoulders of the international
community. The locus of responsibility/power is shifted away from Sri Lanka, and onto
the international community. This rhetorical move, while innocuous from a policy
perspective, speaks to the inability to extend analysis of security beyond that of the state;
furthermore, the state continually functions as both object and subject of security. The
state is to be maintained/protected, and the entities that enable this function to be
performed are states themselves. The report underscores this point when it offers the
following:
Key international actors- the United States, India, Canada,
Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom, other EU member states and
Australia- need to devote resources and political backing to the issue of
accountability for alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka (War Crimes in Sri Lanka
Report, 2010: 36).
This is largely consistent with the notion of common security, which posits that
mitigation of the security dilemma will occur by organizing policies concerning security
in coordination with others to maximize mutual as opposed to unilateral security (Bilgin,
2003). Conforming to the premise a threat to one is a threat to all, states, via common
security, are concerned with insecurity in other states only as it impinges upon their own
stability. Once the threat is combated, security is restored. The state still remains both
the referent and guarantor of security; attempts to shift this via RtoP generally fail.
Attempts to shift the security narrative do take place in part in the reports under analysis;
however it is unclear to what extent RtoP is able to integrate the respective claims. The
“bounds of responsibility” within the RtoP framework are limited, so the potential of
individual-centered notions of security to emerge under the guise of RtoP is constrained.
The War Crimes in Sri Lanka report elucidates the security dilemma faced by internally
displaced persons (IDPs):
The government restricted and tightly monitored access for the UN and
humanitarian agencies, and from July 2009 barred the ICRC from the
camps in Vavuniya. Restrictions on the ICRC remain in place as of May
2010. Although considerable international pressure led to the release of
most of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) by the end of 2009,
80,000 civilians were still in camps as of April 2010. The government
has also detained more than 10,000 individuals allegedly involved with
the LTTE in separate camps with no outside access. These detentions
are unlawful and pose particularly grave risks given the government’s
history of alleged enforced disappearances and torture (War Crimes in
Sri Lanka Report, 2010: 6).
The Sri Lankan government did not guarantee the physical security of IDPs insofar as it
gave paramilitary groups access to the camps, with a broad writ to continue the removal
of people. As the Panel of Experts report notes, this constitutes violation of international
human rights law insofar as it does not protect against arbitrary deprivation of the right to
life and does not guarantee the right to physical security of the person (Panel of Experts
report, 2011: 61). However, while a violation of international human rights law, the
question remains as to whether it satisfies the threshold for RtoP intervention. The
answer to this question assumes the negative, unless genocide, ethnic cleansing, war
crimes, or crimes against humanity have occurred. Thus, consideration of
individualcentered accounts of security, such as that of IDPs, is unable to be subsumed
under the framework of RtoP. For RtoP to become compatible with individual-centered
security accounts, it must formulated in a manner more in line with human security
(UNDP, 1994) or security as emancipation (Booth, 1991), though approaches such as
these are not without flaw. RtoP, as well as the proposed alternatives, rely upon a
gendered conception of security. The gendering of security was ever present in the
documents under analysis as well, and it is to this phenomenon that I now turn.
Gendering Security
A feminist approach to security seeks to destabilize the positioning and reliance
upon the state in defining security. Starting at the microlevel and listening to the
experiences of women, feminists base their understanding of security on situated
knowledge, rather than knowledge that is decontextualized and universalized (Tickner,
2001). The privileging of masculinity over femininity has made gender into a system of
meaning that has come to be expressed in legitimating discourses that keep prevailing
power structures in place (Tickner, 2001). As feminist security narratives are based on
personal experience/knowledge, their goal is to: “not only challenge conventional
meanings for security just because the referent of security is different (i.e. because there
is a deepening of the agenda) but because narratives have the ability to capture a variety
of concerns and events (Wibben, 2011: 100).” Security also implies a sense of belonging;
stability is wrought via inclusion in something larger than the individual (group,
community, state etc), implying a static definition of identity. Yuval-Davis
(1999) suggests: “people seek assurances in definitions of identities and cultures which
are fixed and immutable, an inherent characteristic of people who belong to a specific
community of origin” (Yuval-Davis, 1999: 130). When these notions of identity are not
shared, defining security requires distinguishing between ‘who we are’ and ‘who we are
not’ (Stern, 2006). This serves to mask the various ways that security can be
conceptualized, which relates to different markers of identity (race, class, gender,
sexuality etc.). The Panel of Experts report contributes to a gendered understanding of
security by isolating the (arguably) unique circumstances women face during wartime,
specifically in reference to “gender-based violence:”
Gender-based violence, defined as “violence that is directed against a woman
because she is a woman or that affects women
disproportionately… and includes acts that inflict physical, mental or
sexual harm or suffering” represents discrimination against women
(CEDAW General Recommendation 19). States have a duty to prevent
violations, to investigate and punish acts of violence and to provide
compensation, whether such violations are committed by a public or
private actor (Panel of Experts report, 2011: 63).
Gender is read/understood as equating to women in this analysis. It is predicated upon a
binary in which women can only be victims, and that their victimization is somehow
worse, or needs to be treated as a special case. Yuval-Davis (1997) argues that this is
because women are often represented as the “bearers of culture,” and an attack on their
bodies constitutes an “attack” on the community at large. Zarkov (2001) notes that:
The defended nation is usually cast as feminine. Men fight to protect
“their” women’s honor and thereby that of their nation or, international
rules of war notwithstanding, to dishonor the enemy’s women, and
sometimes even enemy men who are emasculated/feminized by the act
of rape (Zarkov, 2001: 77).
In this vein, security is based upon protection of “vulnerable” populations, or those upon
which meaning has been inscribed. The presentation of women as a “vulnerable”
population is not a novel phenomenon, but one that is present in the Panel of Experts
report. An additional gendering move is implicit in the report’s treatment of the
deliberate targeting of civilians by the LTTE:
Credible allegations point to a violation of Common Article 3 (part of
the Geneva Convention) in that the LTTE deliberately shot at and killed
civilians, including women and children, trying to leave the conflict
zone, notably in the second and third NFZs, in an attempt to maintain
the civilian population forcibly on the LTTE’s side of the frontlines
(Panel of Experts report, 2011: 65).
Echoing Enloe (2000) women (and children) are already present in international
relations; singling them out in this manner assumes that the role of “victim” is what they
generally perform. Allison (2004) notes:
From the mid-1980s, the Tigers (LTTE) have aggressively recruited
women into their fighting cadres; until 1990, the proportion of female
fighters was small, but it then increased rapidly. The women’s military
wing is a well-organized and highly disciplined force. The LTTE’s naval
force, the Sea Tigers, and its suicide squad, the Black Tigers, contain
large numbers of women. The number of female combatants is naturally
a military secret, but estimates vary from between 15-20% to one-third
of the organization’s core combat strength, with some estimates less
realistically claiming 50% (Allison, 2004: 450).
The narrative of women as victim is incomplete and renders a gendered conception of
security. The Panel of Experts report goes on to suggest:
Best practices ensure that gender-based violations are an integral part of
the inquiry and that the voices and experiences of women victims are
heard, whether the mandate expressly incorporates gender, as did the
commission mandates in Haiti, Sierra Leone, and Timor-Leste, or
whether the mandates were gender neutral, as were mandates for
commissions in Guatemala, Peru and South Africa (Panel of Experts
report, 2011: 92).
Envisioning women solely as victims forecloses upon possibilities of other narratives
emerging; the way we talk- or not- simultaneously creates and delimits understanding.
This process is exemplified in the way suicide bombers- especially female- are
discussed/portrayed; de Mel (2004) wrote:
The ways we can talk- or not- about the suicide bomber points to how
the process of militarization in a society that has lived through
protracted war normalizes certain forms of violence and pathologizes
others; while the absolute moral condemnation of suicide killings
carries an attempt to censor the specific historicity of the suicide
bomber grounded in the material socio-political conditions that produce
him or her (de Mel, 2004: 76).
In essence, what de Mel is advocating for is transversal dialogue, which seeks to attend to
difference rather than identity. Transversal politics does not assume that dialogue is
boundary free, and that each conflict of interest is reconcilable. Rather, it stresses that the
boundaries of transversal dialogue are, or should be, determined by the message, rather
than the messengers (Yuval-Davis, 1999). Applying this framework to security and RtoP,
transversal dialogue takes account of difference across groups and seeks to build links
between them. In this way, while security “experiences” may differ, they are united by
their commonality as security claims. In this way, it enables “actors” such as groups and
individuals to speak of security in their own terms, to be subjects that possess agency.
One such example, which undergirds this research, is a gender-based analysis, which
questions the unitary nature of state security by arguing that secure states often only
achieve security by sacrificing the security of some of their citizens, which often includes
women (Tickner, 1998). In place of a focus on state security, feminists have suggested an
approach to security that begins its analysis at the margins of social and political life
(Ackerly et al., 2006). While some are critical of “critical” approaches to security,
suggesting that this makes security about everything and nothing simultaneously, or
stretching the concept beyond its limits, I argue acknowledging the contingent and
multifaceted nature of security allows for fruitful study and collaboration among differing
paradigms/theories. Feminist studies (among other “critical” approaches) of international
security have demonstrated how the security of individuals is related to national and
international politics, as well as how international politics impacts the security of
individuals at the local level (Sjoberg, 2009); indeed, in the words of
Enloe (2000), the personal is international and the international is personal.
Implications/Conclusions
Analysis of Sri Lanka, and its civil war, revealed both the potential and limits of
RtoP as a security doctrine. Credible reports, both by the United Nations, and
international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), such as International Crisis
Group, found evidence of the commission of human rights abuses/crimes, namely war
crimes and crimes against humanity, that warranted invocation of RtoP. It is possible,
though speculative, to suggest that the case of Sri Lanka would have been resolved in a
quicker fashion had RtoP been invoked by legitimate actors empowered with the ability
to carry out an intervention. In fact, the War Crimes in Sri Lanka report detail the
potential risk for renewed conflict:
The international community has particular reasons to be concerned
about any resurgence of violence that might be fed by the defeat of the
LTTE and the humiliation of Tamil civilians. Most of the drivers of Sri
Lanka’s conflict have not been resolved and some new sources of
resentment have emerged. While the government’s security apparatus
is powerful and pervasive enough to suppress any rapid re-emergence
of violent resistance, it will not be able to do indefinitely so long as
legitimate grievances are not addressed (War Crimes in Sri Lanka
report, 2010: 29).
This statement signals both the potential and limits of RtoP. The tripartite goals of RtoP
are to prevent, react, and rebuild. Conceivably, had it been invoked in the case of Sri
Lanka, in response to allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the
preventive and reactive functions would have been fulfilled. However, there is/was doubt
surrounding the prospect for reform in Sri Lanka, which would challenge RtoP’s
“rebuilding” function. The report War Crimes in Sri Lanka states:
In this context, a long-term plan for sustained and graduated pressure
on accountability for alleged war crimes and grave violations of human
rights law offers the international community the only serious leverage
they have to push the Rajapaksa government towards meaningful
political reforms. Without such pressure, the authoritarian and strongly
Sinhala nationalist character of the government will likely deepen and
with it the anger and humiliation of many Tamils and the possibility of
renewed violence (War Crimes in Sri Lanka report, 2010: 32).
Ultimately, as a security policy/doctrine, RtoP is judged according to its ability to carry
out all three simultaneous functions, which can take on different degrees of importance
depending upon the case. However, as a security narrative, RtoP fails to create a holistic
conception of security.
RtoP’s failure as a security narrative, or more specifically, its failure to create a
security narrative beyond a traditional conception of security, rests primarily with the
epistemological foundation it rests upon. As has been detailed in the case of Sri Lanka,
the difficulty in assigning responsibility, or in establishing a subject of security, renders it
ineffectual as a security narrative. According to the dictates of RtoP, intervention would
be justified on the grounds that the Sri Lankan government has manifestly failed in its
obligations to protect its citizens via the committing of war crimes and crimes against
humanity, but the LTTE is equally responsible, as evidence by analysis of the policy
documents. However, it is unclear how the LTTE, as a non-state actor, fits into the
framework of RtoP. Furthermore, the gendered nature of security in Sri Lanka is reified
by the logic of RtoP. As a security narrative, RtoP is predicated upon identification of
victims, and concomitantly, a security guarantor, or protector. This binary privileges the
perspective over that of the victim, and denies the victim any sense of agency and ability
to conceive of security in their own terms. In the policy documents, references to women
as “victims” were pervasive, yet they were only victims within the context that was
referred to in the documents. Gender-based violence certainly constitutes a security
threat, but this is not the only form of insecurity women can experience. Additionally,
women are not the sole victims of gender-based violence. Carpenter (2006) argues that in
theory, gender based violence is “violence targeted at women or men because of their sex
and/or their socially constructed gender roles” (Carpenter, 2006: 83). Understood in this
way, both men and women can be victims and perpetrators, and the violence is gender-
based owing to configurations of gender ideas that justify or naturalize it. Gendering is
an ideational phenomenon and should not be read as pertaining exclusively to women, as
was often the case in Sri Lanka.
Despite its difference in status, Sri Lanka evokes many similarities to that of
Sudan. The security narrative that orders our understanding of the effects of civil war in
Sri Lanka is laden with RtoP-centric language. The focus given to both the Sri Lankan
state, and the LTTE, while understandable in the context of civil war, obscured other
possible tellings of security. The often devastating effects of combat on non-combatants’
daily lives, while acknowledged, is left critically unexamined. Furthermore, quotidian
forms of insecurity are not “threatening” to international peace and security, which due to
its non-conformity with the security narrative of RtoP, is excluded. The state remains the
both the subject of object of security, even during its failure to protect during the civil
war. These findings, in both Sudan and Sri Lanka, have broader implications for the
applicability of RtoP as policy. These implications, along with future lines of inquiry,
will be considered in the conclusion.
Chapter 5
Conclusion
Engaging security in general, and RtoP specifically, on an epistemological level
constituted a logical starting point in my estimation, as security is such a taken for
granted concept. A universal conception of security exists not, which is why I felt it
imperative to elucidate the suppositions that RtoP as a security narrative rests upon. In
speaking security, it is often unclear what precisely security is, and who is being secured.
Both considerations are natural concomitants of the other; the clarity of one is dependent
upon the other. There are several topics I would like to address in this conclusion: (1) the
relationship between gender and peacebuilding; (2) troubling the notions of authority,
responsibility and sovereignty; (3) the future of feminist security studies and (4) the
potential of RtoP moving forward. Before I address these topics, I will address the
findings/implications of this present study, and what I uncovered in my analysis of RtoP
as a whole, and its application (or lack thereof) in my case studies on Sudan and Sri
Lanka, organized in the same manner as my storylines: (1) sovereignty as responsibility;
(2) authority; (2) subject(s) of security; and (4) gendering security.
Discourse analysis Findings
Sovereignty as responsibility
Both Sudan and Sri Lanka failed in their obligations as states to protect the rights
of their citizens, though only Sudan was explicitly treated as an RtoP case. Sovereignty
as responsibility imposes limits upon the right, one in which Sudan and Sri Lanka clearly
surrendered any claim thereto. Sovereignty as responsibility constitutes a prominent
storyline for RtoP; in fact, proponents of RtoP suggest this is the value added; what
happens inside the state is subject to critical scrutiny from outside. I found this to be true
in my discourse analysis. The failures of both Sudan and Sri Lanka were
welldocumented, and in both cases, RtoP interventions were called for. The
SecretaryGeneral’s Panel of Experts report on Sri Lanka called for measures of
accountability to be adopted in reference to war crimes and crimes against humanity
committed during Sri
Lanka’s civil war. Furthermore, the report, along with the International Crisis Group’s
briefing War Crimes in Sri Lanka, detailed the need for states and international
institutions to assist in the rebuilding process to ensure Sri Lanka is able to move
forward, and that the potential for future abuses is diminished. Sudan is perhaps an even
clearer example of the storyline of sovereignty as responsibility actualized. From
20052011, Sudan, or areas in Sudan, received three peacekeeping interventions: UNMIS;
UNAMID, and UNMISS. All three peacekeeping interventions were empowered to use
force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, due to the risks posed to “international peace
and security” by the situation(s) in Sudan. The Global Center for the Responsibility to
Protect report/policy briefing Sudan: Fulfilling the Responsibility to Protect explicitly
references the necessity for RtoP in Sudan:
In 2005, UN member states accepted the responsibility to protect
populations from mass atrocities- genocide, war crimes, ethnic
cleansing and crimes against humanity. Now is the time for
coordinated international action to prevent atrocities from occurring
once again in Sudan (Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect).
RtoP as a security narrative in both Sudan and Sri Lanka paints a very clear picture:
security is imperiled because of the egregious human rights abuses, and through
intervention, the international community will not only contribute to the restoration of
security in these countries, but in the global community writ large. If insecurity is
characterized by the presence of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against
humanity, security is marked by their absence. By relying on the storyline sovereignty as
responsibility, the larger security narrative that RtoP is both producer and product of is
simple and clear cut: failure to live up to obligations results in intervention.
Authority: Who Decides
The storyline relating to authority also clearly delineates what security is, and how
it is to be restored in situations of insecurity. Similar to sovereignty as responsibility, the
failure to adhere to obligations of statehood rendered both the governments of Sudan and
Sri Lanka incapable of deciding what was to be undertaken to resolve the insecurity
unfolding within the borders of their states. The abrogation of responsibility situates
authority to decide in international community vis a vis states and international
governmental organizations. Not to be overlooked, either in this storyline, or sovereignty
as responsibility, is the primacy of the state in considerations of responsibility and
authority. In Sri Lanka for example, the LTTE was equally culpable in the commission of
human rights abuses, while Sudan is marked by inter-ethnic and tribal divisions in
addition to crimes being carried out by the state.
The security narrative that RtoP co-constructs is one that is dependent
upon states, both in identifying failures of security, and the subsequent responses. The
reality that RtoP sees is one that similar to traditional security studies; its conception of
security is predicated upon a statist ontology. Regardless of the multiplicity of actors
involved in the devolution of security in both Sudan and Sri Lanka, the state is deemed
responsible. RtoP is incapable of extending its scope inquiry beyond that of the state.
The example of the LTTE is a prime example of this incapability. As an actor in the Sri
Lankan, they were deemed equally responsible for war crimes and crimes against
humanity that occurred within the context of the civil war, yet its actions would not
activate the RtoP norm. As a non-state actor, the LTTE does not fit into the security
narrative that is (re)produced by RtoP. The ability to define the framework of authority
within RtoP is dependent upon the state; without it the story of security is unable to be
conveyed.
Subject(s) of Security
The subject(s) of security was the first missing, or overlooked, storyline that
marked the RtoP documents, and the documents relating to the cases of Sudan and Sri
Lanka. RtoP conceives of the state as the subject of security; only when the state fails to
“perform” as it should does it surrender its subject status, and lose the ability to tend to its
own security. In this formulation, the populations experiencing insecurity are effectively
denied subject status, and are not afforded the opportunity to speak of security in their
own terms. RtoP speaks of insecurity in terms of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing,
and crimes against humanity; in other words, this is what defines the security narrative.
RtoP is invoked to stymie these egregious threats to security, and once this is
accomplished, security is restored. However, this delimits what can be considered under
the rubric of security, and excludes alternative narratives of security, such as those
relating to food or environmental insecurity.
Furthermore, it denies subject status to any actors beyond that of the state. RtoP is
a limited security narrative in this regard. Not only does it circumscribe what constitutes
insecurity, those experiencing it are rendered security objects, denying the possibility for
speaking of security in their own terms. These large scale abuses are threats to security,
but the conditions that make them possible also factor into the security calculus, and are
they themselves security threats. By not engaging with this storyline, and subverting the
subject/object binary, RtoP leaves the security narrative incomplete.
Gendering Security
The storyline gendering security, much like subject(s) of security, was notable due
to its absence. RtoP (re)produces a gendered form of history through its reliance upon
subject/object binaries discussed in the preceding section. D’Cruze and Rao (2004)
suggest turning an analytical focus to gendered violence will help reveal how violence
establishes social relationships, by constituting subjects even as it renders them
incomplete. In RtoP’s universe, citizens are reliant upon the state for their security, and
when the state abrogates this duty, the impetus for RtoP is catalyzed, and the international
community is able to step in and restore the conditions of security. The “failing” state,
and by extension, its citizens, are the merely the victim in this scenario, while the
international community assumes the role of protector. The “victim” is placed in a
subordinate position to that of the protector; security becomes what the protector defines
it as being. This precludes any possibility of thinking security differently; differences
along the lines of identity, and its relation to security are unable to be imagined. Heyes
(2003) and Ziarek (1995) note the importance of thinking security differently:
Looking at how the impossible promise (or the ultimate failure) of
securing identity plays out in a particular site among people whose
voices are not often heard in writings on security invites reflection
over failure as an opening for thinking security differently (Heyes,
2003: 8; Ziarek, 1995: 90).
For example, RtoP (re)produced a security narrative in Sudan in which women
were constructed solely as victims; further, special efforts were called for to attend to the
experiences of women in conflict. This is not to suggest women’s experiences did not
differ from those of men (or other “identity” markers) in Sudan, but the danger rests in
essentializing women’s experiences to that only of victim. The narrative in Sri Lanka was
marked by a similar logic in its presentation of women as a “vulnerable” population and
prone to victimization via gender-based violence.
Future of Feminist Security Studies
In treating RtoP as a security narrative, I have attempted to exemplify the
importance of distinguishing between story and storyteller. Wibben (2011) suggests:
A key component of the narrative approach is that the differences
between story and storytellers, which characterize personal narratives,
are explicitly acknowledged rather than ironed out as they are in
traditional social science approaches… Narratives are always
contextual; securities are likewise (Wibben, 2011: 86).
Feminist security narratives, based on personal narratives, challenge conventional
meanings for security not just because the referent of security is different (i.e. because
there is a deepening of the agenda) but because narratives have the ability to capture a
variety of concerns and events. These narratives can show how individual perspective
shifts and changes over time (Nordstrom, 1987), and lend insight into the larger context
of an event by making individual events comprehensible by identifying the whole to
which they belong (Polkinghorne, 1988). Feminist security studies allows for an opening
of the agenda, which implies a discussion of the meaning(s) of security; Huymans (2006)
articulates this when he discusses how one of the important tenets of the debates in
security studies revolves around different rationalities of security framing. Focusing on
narratives reveals the multiplicity of experience(s); indeed, security is contextual as
Wibben argues, and a narratological approach reveals the inadequacy of a “one size fits
all” description/definition of security. Edkins (2002) provides an excellent summative
conclusion to the value added of feminist security studies:
Feminist security narratives show how we continue to live our lives in
light of vulnerability, an avenue foreclosed in traditional security studies,
which counters uncertainty with a fantasy of mastery exhibited in the
construction of narratives- about the strength and invulnerability of the
state, about the security and protection it can give, and about the way in
which lives lost are lives sacrificed for a greater cause (Edkins, 2002:
253).
Gender and Peacebuilding
Rethinking RtoP through the lenses of feminist post-structural thought allows for
recognition of gender as a significant dimension of identity and security opens the door to
non-state-based views of security and illustrates how identity shapes individual and
collective security needs. Gender analyses reveal the structures that neutralize identity
through assumptions of the Universal Man. Removing these structural distortions allows
us to hear and respond to identities within (Hoogensen and Rottem, 2004). Through
gender, we can make linkages from the individual to identity, and from identity to
security. One line of inquiry feminist security studies has engaged with (and continues to
do so) is the linkage between gender and peacebuilding. Higate and Henry (2004)
investigate the dynamic of gender and peacekeeping operations, especially as it relates to
the relationship between peacekeepers and local populations. They posit that this
dynamic is gendered in that interactions between and among women and men are
characterized by negotiation, bargaining and exchange between different actors with
unequal access to economic, political, and social power (Higate and Henry, 2004).
Handrahan (2004) finds a similar logic at work in post-conflict reconstruction: “national
and gendered identities and women’s disadvantageous location within global and local
power structures combine to put women at risk, while simultaneously providing little
room for them to voice their security problems” (Handrahan, 2004: 429). Groves et al.
(2009) find that during the transitional period in Timor-Leste, the UN chief mandate of
state security principally attached importance to needs of the state- not those of
individuals- as the basis for attaining peace, and was noticeably bereft of a gender
perspective.
While a “gender perspective” does not solely relate to women, it does signal the
need for adopting a more holistic, quotidian approach to security. In many ways, RtoP is
a discursive construction that produces a reality it seems to reflect, and thus serves certain
purposes and interests. Attending to “gender” considerations in peacebuilding is one way
of thinking security differently. Indeed, it allows us to listen and to consider other views
of the world, it demands disruption of the narrative in order to find “cracks in the
foundation” (emphasis added) (Lugones and Spelman, 1983). Hudson (2010) claims that
there are several elements of peacebuilding, including security, justice and reconciliation,
social and economic well being, and governance and participation. It is a process geared
toward healing the grievances that instigated conflict and preventing those grievances
from reappearing in society. Peacebuilding can also include coming up with specific
policy options for how a state will be organized in the post-conflict phase. A component
of RtoP is an ostensible focus on peacebuilding. A broader commitment to the
“rebuilding” function of RtoP is one such avenue that, with further development, could
enhance the policy effectiveness and applicability of RtoP in conflict situations.
Implications for RtoP moving forward
Finally, I want to address the potential of RtoP as we progress forward in time.
The World Summit Outcome document of 2005 harkened the official era of RtoP as
security policy of the United Nations (UN). The UN and its Member states pledged to
fashion peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention operations according to the rubric set
forth by RtoP. However, as Bellamy (2010) points out, profound disagreements persist
about the function , meaning, and proper use of RtoP, and the principle has been
inconsistently applied (as uncovered in our case studies). A troubling aspect of RtoP is its
dependence upon the sovereignty/state nexus in defining security; a concomitant of this
relationship is considerations of citizenship. A central problem in defining security
outside of state-designed parameters is determining what other parameters could be
equally or more useful (Hoogensen and Rottem, 2004). The need to trouble state
sovereignty, along with the state as security apparatus, is paramount in determining
RtoP’s future utility. Glanville (2013) is critical of the Westphalian, or the “traditional”
conception of sovereignty that undergirds the discipline of International Relations (IR).
In this traditional guise, sovereignty meant that states had a right to govern themselves
however they chose, free from outside interference or intervention. However, in recent
years, this right to sovereignty has come under attack, such as “sovereignty as
responsibility,” or the RtoP doctrine. Glanville suggests this “traditional” meaning of
sovereignty is wrong, that is not as foundational or timeless as commonly assumed. He
suggests that states have been understood to enjoy their supposed “traditional” right of
freedom from external interference for only a relatively brief portion of the long history
of sovereign statehood (Glanville, 2013). If this is accepted as true, the very notion of
states as primary security guarantors is called into question as well. The self-limiting
notion of sovereignty challenges the primacy of states, and if heeded, could open and
expand the ability to “realize” security in a holistic sense. Furthermore, the relationship
between states and security is complicated when dealing with “stateless” populations
(refugees and IDPs as well); in many ways, security is contingent upon recognition, i.e.
having state citizenship. Moving forward, RtoP must be configured in a way to account
for this possibility
Despite the relative “newness” of sovereignty, RtoP remains reliant upon the
existence of states, and sovereignty, to mark the boundaries of security/insecurity. Soysal
(1994) points to a seeming paradox in the growing importance of supra-national
authority of human rights declarations and treaties. It remains that the executors of these
agreements are still states, thus making their effectiveness dependent upon states’
willingness to comply. The power of states is also witnessed in discourses on
legitimating war. Sjoberg and Peet (2011) suggest:
States, by using protection discourses and self-identifying as just
warriors, define their threatening behavior out of existence in public
discourse of state identity, nationalism, and state interests. This allows
the State to threaten its own (particularly female) citizens while
defining itself by protecting them (Sjoberg and Peet, 2011: 167).
RtoP functions in much the same manner by identifying threats to security, often at the
expense of more quotidian security threats, such as food or environmental insecurity.
This would require redefining power and security, such as Hudson (2005) suggests:
A feminist redefinition of power in relational terms, where the survival of
one depends on the well-being of the other, would not only enhance
women’s security but also that of men, who are similarly threatened by
the conventional gendered approach to security (Hudson, 2005: 156).
Ultimately, the success of RtoP moving forward will depend on whether the
narrative is expanded to include alternative conceptions/voices of security; otherwise it
risks being completely subsumed under the traditional security orthodoxy, in which states
remain the primary subjects of security. This demonstrates the necessity for shifting the
focus of security upon the individual. Ogata and Cels suggest (2003):
To state that the individual as the security referent disables the meaning
of security, with the result that we reify state security, brings us only to
the original problem. State security is essential but does not necessarily
ensure the safety of individuals and communities. No longer can state
security be limited to protecting borders, institutions, values, and
people from external aggressive or adversarial designs (Ogata and Cels,
2003).
One such way to do this is through a focus on gender as identity. This would be
consistent with a human security approach, in which the individual is considered to be as
important as a referent object as the state. RtoP was designed to protect citizens from
egregious abuses by the state, which accords with the rigors of human security. This
requires defining security at the individual level, which does not always accord with
state-level definitions. Security through gender identity demands a reorientation and
restructuring of the concept and of international relations in general, enabling the research
to:
Foreground local/global politics; problematize statist thinking and
organization; disrupt boundaries between First and Third World, public
and private, and local and global; reveal interconnections among
political, economic, cultural, social, and ecological sphere (Runyan,
2002).
Gender perspectives not only allow for articulations of security needs by
individuals, but illustrate the ways in which these security needs transcend some of the
traditional barriers we have placed between individuals on the basis of north/south or
secure/insecure divisions. As such, it is ‘a new dimension that women bring in the whole
question of developing an alternative discourse of human security, alternate to the realist
paradigm of power and security (SAP Canada, 2002). Feminism is political; in adopting
a feminist approach to security (studies), the politics of security can be challenged
directly, including the a priori assumption that security is inherently a good thing
(Wibben, 2011). Before the international community makes the decision to refer a
country to the dictates of RtoP, it is necessary to determine whether RtoP constitutes the
appropriate “prism” through which security is to be viewed. If alternative discourses of
security cannot be incorporated into RtoP, then one of two things must occur (1) RtoP as a
security doctrine needs to abandoned or altered or (2) the temptation to securitize must be
resisted, and threats to security, no matter the realm they pertain to, must be dealt with in
the realm of normal politics. Security is powerful when evoked; responses to diverse
threats, such as genocide or environmental disasters do demand different approaches, but
they both still require treatment as security threats. Until individual accounts/narratives
of security are heeded, security policies, RtoP or otherwise, will continue to fall short of
their stated aims.
