RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT (R2P): THE INEFFECTIVENESS OF LEGAL MECHANISMS AND THE ROLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL

Abstract

This article proposes a critical analysis of the applicability and limitations of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle within the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), highlighting the tension between the normativity of international law and the logic of realpolitik. Although R2P represents a landmark in protecting populations from atrocity crimes, its implementation has been uneven, selective, and ineffective, due to the UNSC's asymmetric decision-making structure and actions conditioned by political interests. The investigation adopts a legal-theoretical approach, based on the contribution of fundamental authors such as Gareth Evans, James Crawford, and Alex Chung. The article examines how the institutional architecture of the UNSC, especially the veto power conferred upon its permanent members, constitutes a systematic obstacle to the principle's equitable application, subjecting humanitarian decisions to circumstantial political interests and hindering effective responses. To support this diagnosis, the study analyzes paradigmatic cases where R2P was applied, neglected, or instrumentalized: the intervention in Libya (2011), the civil war in Syria, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the persecution of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar, and the genocide in Rwanda. The article concludes with proposals to strengthen the principle's effectiveness, such as limiting the veto in cases of mass atrocities, expanding the role of the UN General Assembly, and granting R2P the status of a jus cogens norm.