A World Without Alternatives: R2P Meets TINA

KEYWORDS:

• Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
• intervention
• use of force
• atrocity prevention
• humanitarianism
• human rights

It is reasonable to assume that people working on issues related to mass atrocity response and prevention are concerned with addressing human suffering and harm. This does not, however, absolve them of critical scrutiny. On this matter, Didier Fassin’s (2011, 37) framing of ‘the moral untouchability of humanitarianism’ highlights the difficulty of critiquing ‘morally prized social activities, precisely because those activities involve persons and institutions believed to be above suspicion because they are acting for the good of individuals and groups understood to be vulnerable’. That my article, ‘The Moral Untouchability of the Responsibility to Protect’ (Hobson 2022), provoked a response sufficient to merit this forum in some ways demonstrates the point. In that piece, I argued that it is important to directly consider the political and ethical dimensions of attempting to advance and institutionalise the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine. Yet on this there is evident discomfort: asserting that states might have mixed motives (Pattison 2010, ch 6) is one thing, acknowledging the same logic can apply to academics and activists is apparently another.

In the short period of time since my article was published, conditions in international politics have considerably worsened. At the time of writing this response in the first quarter of 2024, there is ongoing war in Ukraine, fighting in Sudan, widespread displacement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, close to complete state failure in Haiti, destabilisation and stress across the Sahel region, along with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict gravely deepening and risking wider war across the Middle East. This is a short and incomplete list of situations of extreme human suffering and vulnerability currently found in the world. Given these troubling developments, it is an appropriate moment to reflect on what humanitarianism and mass atrocity prevention might look like in these increasingly fraught and conflictual conditions. In their contributions to the forum, Jess Gifkins and Dean Cooper-Cunningham (2024), Richard Illingworth (2024a), and Sarah Teitt (2024) all point to recent research – mostly published after my article was completed – that speak to critiques I made about a tendency to downplay the consequences of the use of force, along with concerns about research on R2P not paying sufficient attention to the actual lived experiences of humanitarian emergencies. The appearance of such work is a welcome development, although it needs to be placed alongside the continued rote recitation of the necessity for R2P, as well as the steady march of more cookie cutter publications. Are these efforts enough? On this question, my position echoes that of the forum contributions from Aidan Hehir (2024) and Jeremy Moses (2024).

In the interest of being interesting, this brief response will not seek to defend, but to advance, and to do so through reflecting on the meaning and significance of the R2P doctrine, and accompanying research output, for the world presently taking shape.¹ If ‘now is the time of monsters’,² what does this mean for humanitarianism? What type of thought and work are required? There is no claim here to being a ‘critical friend’, only the free speech of parrhesia, whereby ‘the speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion’ (Foucault 2001, 20). This response does so primarily through engaging with an issue raised both by Gifkins and Cooper-Cunningham (2024), that my original article ‘fails to offer any new solutions’, and by Illingworth (2024a), who asks, ‘what is the alternative?’ These observations are accurate. More expansive thinking is required.

The other R2P: The responsibility to publish

That R2P can be endlessly investigated, applied, and expanded makes it well suited for contemporary academia. The usual narratives of the doctrine’s development generally overlook an important contextual factor, namely, the steady advance of neoliberalism. In such conditions, the R2P framework offers a ready formula for producing articles, books, chapters, theses, and grant applications. Options include applying it to the case du jour, tracking support for the norm in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) or other bodies, considering one country’s engagement with R2P, or connecting the doctrine to another issue, be that climate change, terrorism or whatever might have traction at that moment. It is a particularly clear case of the much more general malaise and shifting norms of academia, with expectations to produce research content to secure positions and stay employed, win grant money, and self-promote to increase visibility (Macfarlane 2021). This has as much to do with value capture in universities, as C. Thi Nguyen (forthcoming) describes, as it does with any sincere belief that what the world needs is more articles about the status of R2P as a norm. It is rather tiresome that the lived reality of being an academic is ‘publish or perish’ (van Dalen and Henkens 2012), and yet in print there is a widespread refusal to acknowledge how these pressures might incentivise behaviour. Suggesting that such imperatives might blend with, and reinforce, higher normative motivations potentially shaping one’s work is decried as ‘cynical’ (Illingworth 2023). Here a lack of intellectual honesty about the conditions in which knowledge is produced – and it is indeed produced, then packaged, and sold – reflects a deeper refusal to seriously reckon with the forces shaping our world.

In his contribution, Illingworth (2024a) presents a comprehensive research bibliography on R2P of 120 pages and over 40,000 words as a sign of good health (Gallagher 2024); I would argue quite the opposite: it is indicative of ill health, of over-production. If one were to chart the rise of work on R2P it would likely map neatly onto the exponential growth curve of research that Derek de Solla Price (1965, 18–19) gloomily predicted would eventually lead to a ‘scientific doomsday’. Ever more is published, but whether this work collectively represents an advance – or overflow – of knowledge is a different matter (Bridle 2018). To generate so much content in such a relatively short space of time about a doctrine that has produced such limited tangible, positive results is a remarkable example of how the conditions of contemporary neoliberal academia actively inhibit knowing.

Whereas the literature on humanitarian intervention until the late 1990s was a manageable corpus of work, the ever-growing flood of books, articles, and reports on R2P has already generated a library too great to master or substantively engage with. The result is that invariably most of it is ignored, with the same handful of names being read and cited endlessly. How many peer-reviewed publications on R2P exist that fail to dutifully cite Alex Bellamy, Gareth Evans, Ramesh Thakur, Thomas Weiss and co? A further perverse consequence is that as the literature continues to proliferate, the body of knowledge is narrowed and thinned out. That the bibliography lacks a section on antecedents to the doctrine is illustrative of this. The desire for R2P to be distinguished from – and supersede – humanitarian intervention means that prior scholarship using the earlier frame becomes discarded and forgotten. For historical background, reading Luke Glanville’s Sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect (2013) now suffices, whereas earlier works of great value, like R.J. Vincent’s Nonintervention and International Order (1974), disappear from view. These dynamics interact perniciously with the oversupply of work on R2P: if keeping up with that content is hard enough, what scope is there – especially for early career researchers – to engage with broader and deeper points of reference? Just as correlation does not equal causation, quantity does not equate with quality.

Producing all this content is not without cost: considerable effort and resources are expended in advancing and supporting R2P. One dreads to think how many hours of writing, editing and peer review went into generating those 120 pages.³ To this can be added the funding, research grants, workshops and related miscellanea consumed and spent. In addition to the expenses involved with these activities and outputs, there are the opportunity costs from not using those resources to pursue other, potentially more promising, avenues of work. Given the limited uptake and positive impact of the doctrine, it would be difficult to justify R2P’s ROI (return on investment). Indeed, if R2P is ‘irredeemably flawed’, as Hehir (2024) puts it, or that ‘R2P no longer represents a viable normative agenda for humanitarianism’, as Moses (2024) powerfully argues, continuing to devote so much effort to this failing project is effectively throwing good money after bad. On this point, one of Illingworth’s (2024a) weakest arguments is his suggestion that, ‘abandoning R2P would be to discard the more than two decades of effort so far put into building the norm’. Here supporters of R2P are susceptible to the psychology of sunk costs.⁴ Another example of this is offered by Ivan Šimonovic (2020, 256), former Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General on R2P: ‘the current impediments to fulfilling the central aims of R2P lie not in the principle itself, but in its inadequate implementation’, and so, ‘redoubling support for its implementation will help close the gap between principle and reality’. At some point, however, there must be recognition that it might be the principle – not reality – that is the problem. Hehir’s (2024) unanswered critique about R2P’s failing the ‘falsifiability test’, that it is unable to be disproven, means it is always possible to avoid directly facing the limits and failings of the doctrine. Reality, not R2P, is forever at fault. And so, advocates end up channelling the ghost of Margaret Thatcher’s TINA: ‘there is no alternative’.

Those who continue to support and advocate for R2P are not oblivious to the increase in atrocities and human rights abuses occurring at the same time as the doctrine has been institutionalised (Illingworth 2024b, 3); a remarkable correlation emphasised by Hehir (2019). In their introduction to Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: A Future Agenda, Cecilia Jacob and Martin Mennecke (2020, 1) present what they label ‘the paradox of R2P implementation’: ‘as the number of UN resolutions with references to R2P has increased, so too have trends in violent conflict and atrocities against civilians demonstrated an upward trajectory’. There is no paradox present, however, it is simply ineffectuality and irrelevance. Meanwhile, Šimonovic (2020, 263) proposes:

Unfortunately, R2P has not led so far to an overall numerical decrease in atrocity crimes, due to an increase in atrocity crimes risks and lack of implementation in practice. However, there are reasons to believe that it has the potential to do so in the future, when current unfavorable conditions change.

Here platitudes stand in place of analysis. Most trendlines indicate that unfavourable conditions are highly likely to persist and deepen in the near to medium term future. As David Rieff (2002, 324) judges, such work ‘is advocacy, and eminently defensible as such … but it is bereft of critical thinking’.

Endtimes and dark times

There is a pressing need to reckon with a world in which solutions are lacking and alternatives are absent. The Uppsala Conflict Data Program highlights the spread of conflict between and across states in recent years, and with it, a rapid rise in fatalities from organised violence (Davies, Pettersson, and Öberg 2023). There might be widespread recognition that the liberal international order is experiencing considerable contestation and change, but fully working through the ramifications of these developments is difficult and discomforting. Regardless of any backstories one might choose to adopt, R2P as a political project remains closely tied to an institutional and ideational context that appears stretched to near breaking point. Even if one chooses to accept Illingworth’s (2024a) highly contestable claim that R2P should be considered in a manner equivalent to human rights and international law, the problem is not resolved but displaced, as these much deeper commitments are increasing contested. On this theme, Stephen Hopgood (2015) has proposed we have entered ‘the endtimes of human rights’, a context in which there is much less material and ideational support for humanitarian action. This echoes wider shifts in international law, as described by Anne Orford (2020, 7): ‘over the past decade, and with surprising rapidity, the complex architecture of international treaties, tribunals and institutions consolidated since the end of the Cold War has begun to unravel’. In this regard, most work on R2P is built on a set of assumptions about international institutions and law that might no longer hold (Stephan 2023).

Growing stresses and shifts in international institutions, international law and human rights have been further revealed and amplified following Israel’s response to Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023. In his contribution to this forum, Moses (2024) argues what is unfolding is of great significance: ‘it is not only the R2P that has been proven to be of at best marginal value in relation to Gaza. We could also say that the entire edifice of international humanitarian law, human rights law and humanitarianism in general is in question’. In a similar vein, Agnès Callamard (2024), Secretary General of Amnesty International, argues that, the ‘catastrophic human rights and humanitarian crisis in Gaza is the culmination of years of erosion of the international rule of law and global human rights system’.⁵ Adding to these judgements, Pankaj Mishra (2024) reflects that, ‘the profound rupture we feel today between the past and the present is a rupture in the moral history of the world since the ground zero of 1945’. Such conclusions point to more fundamental breaks in international order that challenge the foundations on which R2P is built. Indeed, when the disintegrative features of this specific conflict are placed in reference to wider trends in politics, both domestic and international, it suggests a return to the dark times that Hannah Arendt and Bertolt Brecht once spoke of.

Recognising these gravely deteriorating conditions entails moving beyond repeating rote banalities,⁶ and directly grappling with much more difficult dilemmas taking shape. In terms of engaging with such questions, Teitt (2024) is more optimistic than myself about the directionality of recent work. To engage fully with these issues requires a willingness to decentre and potentially discard R2P, which is less likely to occur within institutional structures that encourage its persistence.⁷ As states struggle with growing debt, domestic pressures, and various security threats, it is increasingly difficult to even recognise atrocities taking place (de Waal and Mohammed 2023), let alone considering which ones should be prioritised (Glanville and Pattison 2021). This is all happening in the context of the UN system and international cooperation being significantly weakened through the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukraine war, increased geopolitical competition, and now the shock of both Hamas’ attack and Israel’s response. These conditions suggest much more challenging questions: what does it mean for R2P if the UNSC becomes effectively moribund? What of the possibility that the UN system falls into disfunction and obsolescence? What if regional organisations and mechanisms become more ineffectual and fractured? What does the doctrine look like if human rights norms and international law are radically undermined? What scope is there for humanitarian response as resources become increasingly scarce? What forms of humanitarian action are possible in a fractured, conflictual, pluralist international order? The history of the first half of the twentieth century stands as an enduring, horrifying example of what lies within the realm of possibility when orders fall and politics fail.

Beware the bread-eaters

Any serious reflection with the disintegrative and transformative forces now present should motivate more open, braver thinking about where we are collectively headed. Indeed, these emergent conditions of growing geopolitical competition, economic stress, energy demand, environmental destruction, technological transformation, mass migration, and societal pressure might be labelled ‘polycrisis’ (Davies and Hobson 2023; Lawrence 2024). Continuing to stubbornly produce more R2P-related content when faced with so many intractable challenges is woefully inadequate as a response. A world of cumulative and connected risks requires more expansive and creative scholarship than what prevails in much of academia, which encourages timid, tiny claims to be carefully prefaced and defended with an excess of footnotes, further reduced through the deadening hand of peer review, eventually being produced, and parcelled out onto digital platforms to then be sold back to the institutions that funded the work in the first place.

There is an ever-widening gap between the increasingly peripheral outputs that academics willingly produce and the massive questions the world is collectively asking of us. Reflecting on how incentives shape research, Mats Alvesson, Katja Einola and Stephan Schaefer (2022) return to Friedrich Schiller’s inaugural lecture as professor of history in the University of Jena in 1789, delivered at a moment of crisis and change, in which he distinguished between ‘the Philosophical Mind’ and ‘the Brotgelehrte’ (‘bread-fed scholars’). From this, Alvesson, Einola and Schaefer (2022, 1841) propose two ideal types of ‘scholar’ and ‘Brotgelehrte’:

A Scholar actively thinks about the nature of the phenomenon of interest, strives to see the world from a novel angle, reconsiders frameworks, carefully scrutinizes data and challenges received ideas. The Brotgelehrte has a more instrumentalist orientation towards what to study and how to go about research. S/he knows how to play the system and is interested in maintaining it. The Brotgelehrte is merely doing a job, mainly focused on socio-politics of academic habitats and navigating these in order to accomplish specific career objectives.

It is Brotgelehrte that presently prevail. In this sense, much of what has been discussed here is simply an egregious example of deeper and wider problems in the discipline of International Relations, and the social sciences more generally. It should be evident that the world does not need more marginalia produced and consumed by bread-fed academics. How to resist the ‘regimes of performance’ (Morrissey 2015) that regulate academics within neoliberal universities? How do we individually and collectively pursue the path of the scholar? How do we better know and create knowledge that speaks to our conditions? How do we do this while remaining attuned to the suffering and harm that motivates humanitarianism? Engaging with such questions offers the possibility of moving beyond the realm of the bread-eaters, and points to the genuinely open thinking of the scholar. That is where alternatives might again be found.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christopher Hobson

Christopher Hobson is an Associate Professor in the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, and holds positions as a Visiting Associate Professor in the College of Global Liberal Arts, Ritsumeikan University.

Notes

1 This extends and develops reflections presented elsewhere. See Hobson (2016; 2017); Davies and Hobson (2023), as well as writing on my Substack: https://imperfectnotes.substack.com/

2 This is Slavoj Žižek’s (2010) paraphrasing of Antonio Gramsci’s much quoted, ‘in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear’.

3 See Mastroianni (2022) for the costs that come with the peer review model.

4 Hal Arkes and Catherine Blumer (1985, 124) explain the psychology of sunk cost: ‘This effect is manifested in a greater tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made. The prior investment, which is motivating the present decision to continue, does so despite the fact that it objectively should not influence the decision.’

5 These conditions have led to difficult discussions in related fields, such as a forum in the Journal of Genocide Research (2024) on ‘Israel-Palestine: Atrocity Crimes and the Crisis of Holocaust and Genocide Studies’, an example of the kind of engagement that Moses (2024) argues has been largely absent in relation to R2P.

6 ‘The current state of affairs gives reason to question whether R2P as a concept can be revived. The cost of not doing so, however, is too high – states must step up.’ (Jacob 2023).

7 James Pattison’s (2021) article on what a post-liberal order might mean for R2P is carefully cited and suitably theorised, but offers no great revelations by concluding, ‘in sum, the post-liberal order could be severely detrimental to the R2P’s international responsibility to protect’ (Pattison 2021, 901). More interesting are Thomas Peak’s (2023) explorations of whether such conditions might lead to genocide prevention motivated by a logic of realpolitik. Teitt (2024) also points to Jason Ralph’s (2023) work within a wider context of developing pragmatic constructivism in reference to other major security challenges such as nuclear weapons and climate change. Another valuable avenue of scholarship is returning to the direct aversion for suffering found in humanitarianism by directly engaging with pacifism. On this see Dexter (2019) and Moses (2020).