Responsibility to Protect: Russia’s Approaches

The Russian Stand on the Responsibility to Protect: Does Strategic Culture Matter?

“…Presentation of R2P as an emerging norm also disturbs Russia who prefers to use the word ‘concept’ or ‘notion’ while referring to R2P (Baranovsky & Mateiko, 2016, p. 50). In this line, opposing to Security Council’s attempt to refer R2P as an emerging norm Russian representatives to UN warns against ‘taking rash and hasty steps to apply that idea arbitrarily and (…) interpreting it too broadly’ (General Assembly Debate on Implementing the Responsibility to Protect, 2009).…”

Protection or Interference? The Legitimacy of Contemporary Humanitarian Interventions and the Engagement of Nonhegemonic Powers

“…Russia, on the other hand, as part of its opposition to the 'Western liberal agenda, ' has adopted a more reticent attitude towards the R2P, particularly due to its revision of state sovereignty (Baranovsky and Mateiko 2016). It believes that there is a material continuity between the heavily criticised humanitarian interventions of the 1990s and the R2P as a disruption of territorial sovereignty (Trenin 2016).…”

“…The Russian reservations also address the country's internal concerns about its influence over its Soviet neighbours, as well as the possible impacts on its security and financial relations (Ziegler 2016b). Moscow's interventions in Georgia (2008), justified via the R2P narrative (Evans 2012) and in Ukraine (2014) clearly demonstrate Russia's apprehension about its area of influence without much appreciation for multilateral principles (Baranovsky and Mateiko 2016). The element of morality in the notion of Just Wars and in the R2P itself does not resonate with Russian strategic thinking (Kurth 2015), and also does not agree with the universalist pretension that the norms of intervention are intended (Trenin 2016).…”

“…Russia's understanding of the inviolability of sovereignty as built into the San Francisco Charter is read as a principle of the constitutional order derived from the document (Allison 2013; Averre and Davies 2015), which is based on a 'restricted' view that does not allow the reformulation of sovereignty in the course of novel intervention doctrines (Kuhrt 2015). It does recognise the importance of preventing atrocities as a key element of the international security agenda, but opposes the use of force as means of exerting external influence over other countries (Baranovsky and Mateiko 2016). Therefore, the intervention in Libya (2011) is fundamental to evaluating the acceptance of R2P's normative process through canons of dissonant voices.…”

Evolution of Russia’s approaches to the “responsibility to protect”

“…Россия, в целом признавая изменения в международном развитии и необходимость их серьезного обсуждения, придерживается на этот счет скорее осторожного, ограничительного подхода. 8 В частности, она избегает трактовать R2P как становление новой международно-политической (и тем более правовой) нормы, предпочитая говорить о «концепции», или «понятии». Так что на взгляд радикальных адептов R2P, Россия находится в арьергарде дискуссий по этой теме.…”