Gaza and the “Responsibility to Protect”
A footnote to the 2011 Libyan debate.
8/2/2025
Gaza and the “Responsibility to Protect”: A footnote to the 2011 Libyan debate
Gilbert Achcar
Fourteen years ago, in the midst of the crazed reaction to my comment in an interview where I stated my critical neutrality towards the UN’s decision to authorize the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya in the name of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) – basically sharing Beijing’s and Moscow’s stance in abstaining at the UN Security Council on the related resolution instead of vetoing it – I concluded one of my responses to critics (and slanderers) with the following:
As those members of the US establishment who opposed their country's intervention rightly warned, the next time Israel’s air force bombs one of its neighbours, whether Gaza or Lebanon, people will demand a no-fly zone. I, for one, definitely will. Pickets should be organized at the UN in New York demanding it. We should all be prepared to do so, with now a powerful argument.
The left should learn how to expose imperialist hypocrisy by using against it the very same moral weapons that it cynically exploits, instead of rendering this hypocrisy more effective by appearing as not caring about moral considerations. They are the ones with double standards, not us.
A few smarties of the knee-jerk “anti-imperialist” left made fun of this statement. And yet, had the radical left been more astute in relating to international law (this is indeed one of the main shortcomings of that left) and in upholding it against imperialist encroachments and violations, it could and should have invoked R2P about Gaza, even if only to expose the hypocrisy and double standards of Israel’s backers.
The following are a few excerpts from open-access comments about R2P in the light of the Gaza genocide, by experts in international law.
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That local or former colonial states might have other interests besides humanitarian ones — that the interveners were not always the United Nations as a whole but individual states with ulterior motives — did not detract from the fact that military violence was being used to stop genocide. Again, this was a common liberal mainstream opinion between the early 1990s up through the Obama administration, which saw NATO intervene in Libya on similar grounds.
Now we’re confronted with a genocide in Gaza. … What say the Right to Protect advocates now? Where have all the liberal humanitarians gone?
https://jacobin.com/2025/08/israel-palestine-humanitarian-intervention-genocide
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Ironically, the states that are enabling Israeli atrocities are also some of the erstwhile champions of the R2P doctrine and the ICC as the ultimate haven of justice against the most depraved of transgressors.
Observing leaders of the most powerful countries ganging up to mobilise the world’s most formidable arsenals and fleets against the poorest and most oppressed inhabitants of the earth, is a lesson in moral blindness. It appears to vindicate critics of R2P who have been arguing that the doctrine has always been a subterfuge for thinly disguised imperialism under false moral pretence.
I beg to differ. I believe that the doctrine has emerged in a period where the West in general and Europe in particular felt they could afford to act ethically.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/10/31/where-is-the-responsibility-to-protect-in-gaza
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Certainly, the United States’ continued moral and materiel support for Israel despite compelling evidence of state-sponsored atrocities in Gaza undercuts US moral standing and has been a challenge to its human rights diplomacy. But what seems to be a growing sense that R2P cannot (or ought not) survive US hypocrisy and perceived moral bankruptcy on Gaza belies the fact that US leadership has never been the key momentum behind R2P. Recall that the initial concept of R2P first emerged from a Canadian-led Commission in 2001, chaired by a former Australian Foreign Minister and an Algerian diplomat. The rocky negotiations leading to its endorsement at the UN World Summit in 2005 were shepherded by Gabon, Sweden, and Qatar, despite the agreement on R2P almost being scuppered by then US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton. …
Hypocrisy is abundant. And yet, the idea that the international community ought to be able to take action when a state fails to execute the most basic responsibility to refrain from or halt atrocity crimes, and that it is a worthy endeavour to strengthen multilateral institutions toward this goal, seems – now more than ever – to serve universal interests.
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The failure to apply the R2P to the Gaza Strip has led to a wider questioning of the legitimacy of UN and its main organs. Calls by Arab states for a reform of the UN Security Council have gained momentum in the face of the double standards in the application of international humanitarian law. The tit-for-tat refusal by the US, the UK and sometimes France on the one side, and China and Russia on the other, to approve resolutions and ceasefire motions initiated by their political rivals has led to a standstill which is considered unacceptable by the majority of the world community. There is a global perception that there is a responsibility to protect the civilians in Gaza, which emanates more strongly from the people than from opportunistic governments seeking to expand their influence in the Middle East. The level of accountability of governments to their citizens, particularly in the Western world where it is expected, is a decisive factor in determining the outcome of the conflict.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13533312.2024.2427208
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The full ruling on whether Israel violated the Geneva Convention is expected to take years, but the UN can use the momentum from South Africa’s case to leverage the concept of Responsibility to Protect. The fact that the case was even heard serves as a powerful symbolic condemnation of Israel. This moral pressure can incentivise parties towards a ceasefire. … The case could set a legal precedent for applying R2P in similar situations, influencing future responses to mass atrocities. If nothing else, it highlights the need to protect civilian populations and prevent mass atrocities, central tenets of R2P.