Brazil and the responsibility while protecting initiative: norms and the timing of diplomatic support.

Kenkel, Kai Michael ; Stefan, Cristina G.

This article examines Brazil's responsibility while protecting (RwP) initiative as an example of norm sponsorship available to nonpermanent members of the Security Council. After setting the stage with Brazil's historical engagement with intervention issues, it discusses the reasons behind the Brazilian initiative. It examines RwP's key proposals and the reactions they generated. RwP's normative implications are discussed, together with an examination of the main reasons why Brazil's sponsorship of the initiative waned following its exit from the Council. Brazil's withdrawal from sponsoring RwP highlights the need for ongoing support for initiatives that seek to revive the international community's intervention practices by tackling the basic tenets of discord over R2P's implementation. Keywords: responsibility while protecting, Brazil, international norms, Responsibility to Protect, intervention, emerging powers.

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BRAZIL'S RESPONSIBILITY WHILE PROTECTING (RWP) INITIATIVE HAS BECOME A key contribution to the international debate on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and intervention in general, as well as a guiding element for Brazil's and other emerging powers' engagement with intervention, collective security, global governance, and normative aspects of recent changes in the balance of global influence. Its contribution lies in reconciling supportive and dissenting views on R2P, including those from both the Global North and South, in the wake of the divisive 2011 intervention in Libya. In this sense, it is an example of the shaping of a norm, done by an emerging power availing itself of the platform offered by nonpermanent membership in the UN Security Council.

RwP's potential as a bridge-building exercise was realized only after initially strong criticism. Due to a combination of diplomatic and domestic reasons--including, significantly, the end of the country's term on the Security Council--by the time its potential had been recognized, RwP had seen the support of its original sponsor withdrawn. The Brazilian initiative provides insights into a number of pertinent issues regarding the current intervention debate and beyond. These include the role of normative debates--especially in the Council--as a locus of emerging powers' challenge to the global order, and these states' potential as norm entrepreneurs, as well as the importance of continued active sponsorship to the success of conceptual initiatives in global diplomacy.

The RwP note, (1) launched in November 2011, represents the culmination, to date, of Brazil's engagement with questions of intervention and of normative aspects of its quest for greater global influence. Given the specific time frame during which Brazil promoted RwP, it also exemplifies the potential for normative influence that is open to elected members of the Security Council. Internationally, it marks the first systematic, conceptually grounded attempt by a developing-world voice to bridge the increasing gap between mounting acceptance of R2P's principles and growing discontent over the manner of its implementation. This discontent is symbolized for many by the NATO-led 2011 intervention in Libya, Operation Unified Protector, and the vote on Security Council Resolution 1973. (2)

In this article, we analyze Brazil's role in shaping a specific normative initiative in recent UN debates, using the RwP case. We set the stage with a brief recapitulation, available in more detailed form elsewhere in the authors' respective work, of Brazil's prior normative commitments and experiences in the area of intervention. To an extent, these can also be seen as indicative of emerging powers' engagement with the question. Subsequently, we discuss the proximate and remote triggers for Brazil's assumption of an entrepreneurial role in providing a key conceptual input to the R2P conversation in 2011. We then analyze state reactions to RwP, in the North and the South, before outlining its specific provisions and how these have effectively structured subsequent debates on R2P. A final section brings the previous findings to bear in characterizing Brazil's role as a "norm shaper." (3) Here, we explain how the withdrawal of its support can be portrayed as premature given the subsequent normative advancement and refinement, or lack thereof to date, of the RwP concept beyond its role as a touchstone structuring diplomatic debate.

The Context of RwP's Emergence: Brazil's Engagement with Intervention

Since the advent of renewed debate over humanitarian intervention in the post-Cold War era, intervention has been a thorny issue for Brazilian diplomacy. Changes in Western states' understanding of the relationship between sovereignty and human rights in the wake of the UN peacekeeping failures of the 1990s opened an increasing gap between the tenets underpinning established powers' policy and those held by many developing powers who continued to view the inviolability of borders as an important existential guarantee.

Over the course of the past decade, Brazil has incrementally moved from a regional to a global economic and diplomatic horizon, encountering tensions between the norms prevalent at each of these levels. This applies prominently to intervention issues, including R2P and UN peace operations such as the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), for which Brazil supplies the force commander and largest contingent. Both issues have played a pivotal role as normative linchpins for the country's growing pains; (4) Brazilian diplomats' navigation of these tensions can be mapped neatly using their reactions to the operationalization of R2P at the UN. (5)

Despite frequent election to the Security Council, prior to the submission of the RwP concept note, Brazil did not consistently play a prominent role in peace operations or in UN debates on intervention. The country's representatives often either abstained or shared the nonaligned preference for nonintervention. The emphasis, as pointedly put by Ramesh Thakur, was on "justice among, rather than within, nations." (6)

Accordingly, the advent of R2P was greeted with significant skepticism. Brazil's resistance to the concept as initially formulated by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) hinged, among other points, on three main concerns: the acceptability and efficacy of the use of military force; the criteria of right authority (the representativeness, and thus the legitimacy of the Security Council, was cast into doubt); and a fear, based on a deep historically rooted mistrust, of misuse of R2P by Western powers to cloak aggressive interventionism. (7)

Together with other developing powers such as India, (8) Brazil was not receptive to the inclusion of R2P in the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document. Nevertheless, a critical mass of support for the principle resulted in the inclusion of the four crimes of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity in paragraphs 138 and 139 of the Outcome Document. This shifted the cost-benefit balance for Brazil's engagement with the concept. (9) The increasing institutionalization of R2P at the UN created a dilemma for Brazilian policymakers, as did growing rhetorical support. The latter is exemplified, for instance, by positions such as that of the special advisers for genocide prevention (2004) and R2P itself (2007) and the insertion of R2P in Security Council resolutions, including those mandating UN peace operations. It is noteworthy that R2P's new weight within the UN placed two foundational principles of the country's foreign conduct at odds: on the one hand, the firm support for multilateralism and global governance, and therefore the UN's normative acquis (now ultimately including R2P); and, on the other hand, Brazil's historical attachment to a more conservative, statist interpretation of sovereignty that did not link the right to nonintervention to human rights concerns.

Between the World Summit and the issuance of RwP, Brazil's representatives increasingly undertook to bridge this gap; in doing so, they chose to contribute explicitly in normative and conceptual terms. At its peak, this meant harnessing the emergent principle to Brazil's quest for increased global representation and its policy strengths in conflict resolution without force, such as peacebuilding and poverty reduction, (10) giving the country increased entrepreneurship as a norm "shaper," rather than mere "taker." (11)

This trajectory of increased participation in UN debates on intervention--spurred by the personal interest of then foreign minister Antonio Patriota, who subsequently became the country's permanent representative to the UN in August 2013--created the impetus that resulted in RwP, in the wake of the Libyan intervention. Brazil's acceptance of R2P, albeit reluctant, is indicative of the overall advance of the debate to a new stage in the diplomatic and analytical ambits. Indeed, the discussion has largely overcome fundamental normative hurdles and moved into debates on operationalization. (12)

Direct Motivations for the RwP Concept Note

Against this backdrop, the more immediate impetus for the RwP concept note lies in at least three interrelated factors. All three are firmly located in Brazil's quest for greater diplomatic profile as an emerging power. First, this pursuit has peace operations as one of its central vehicles, as manifested in MINUSTAH, which represents a rupture with previous practice. Second, Brazil chooses to mount its challenge to established powers explicitly in normative terms, as in the case of development aid, nuclear policy, and peacebuilding. Finally, the discontent over Western management of the Libyan crisis provided the immediate catalyst for the RwP initiative, which inscribed interventions as a larger locus of normative contestation between established powers and larger states in the Global South. Similarly, RwP is a watershed in the R2P conversation, marking the moment at which growing consensus over the content of the principle came to be accompanied by growing divisions between groups of states over how R2P was to be interpreted and implemented. In particular, the details of the negotiation process for Security Council Resolution 1973, and its implementation by the NATO-led coalition, crystallized the debate into a contestation over implementation of R2P between major NATO powers and the BRICS grouping of emerging powers (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).

It is noteworthy that all BRICS states, together with another aspirant to permanent membership--Germany--were members of the Security Council during the votes on Resolutions 1970 and 1973. It is likely that the demonstration effect of such a constellation provided added stimulus for Brazil to take on a role as a shaper of a specific key international norm such as R2P. Further, Brazil presided over the Council when Resolution 1970--the first to invoke R2P with all BRICS on the Council--passed unanimously. Following the Arab League's statement of support for a no-fly zone in Libya, Brazil was supportive of invoking R2P and referring to military means in a Security Council resolution. (13) Resolution 1973 passed on 17 March 2011 and marked the first time that the Security Council had used Chapter VII to approve the use of force under the R2P banner against a sitting regime.

Although Resolution 1973 refers explicitly to the Libyan government's responsibility to protect its citizens in its fourth preambulatory paragraph, several authors have questioned the centrality of R2P to Security Council members' deliberations with regard to Libya at the time. (14) Indeed, the mention of R2P itself results from a larger trajectory within the debate over intervention--and clashing interpretations between the three Western permanent members of the Council (P3) and the BRICS--that came to a head over the Libyan issue. (15)

Resolution 1973 was adopted with ten positive votes, none against, and five abstentions--those of four of the five BRICS on the Security Council, and Germany; South Africa supported the resolution. Several of the abstaining states opted for this route because they did not want to stop some type of action from being taken given the steadily worsening security situation in Benghazi, but also did not wish to see "all necessary measures" increase to include overt pursuit of regime change--the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi. (16) Brazilian representatives later pointed out that the country's abstention "should in no way be interpreted as condoning the behavior of the Libyan authorities or as disregard for the need to protect civilians and respect their rights." (17) Nevertheless, as Brazil customarily does not vote against Security Council resolutions, particularly when no permanent member does so, abstention is de facto its strongest practicable form of disapproval of a tabled resolution.

Emerging powers' ensuing mistrust was profound, and based squarely on events on the ground and in New York; several members were left with the impression of having been misled about sponsors' intentions once Qaddafi's overthrow became an overt goal of NATO action. (18) A perception on the BRICS's part of "overreach" by major Western powers (19) emerged, triggered by insistence on regime change and buttressed by the rejection by the coalition of repeated cease-fire offers.

Accordingly, RwP must be analyzed as resulting from "fear that R2P might be instrumental in legitimising military interventions carried out for the pursuit of vested political, economic or strategic interests, other than those strictly related to humanitarian concerns." (20) A crucial factor in understanding the reaction of emerging powers from the Global South was the "trust deficit" that crystallized around the Libyan case and had also been "spawned by past cases of foreign occupation," (21) rooted in "discomfort with the use of force and skepticism about the interests of Western states." (22) This was underscored by the acknowledgment of Gareth Evans, Ramesh Thakur, and Robert Pape that they were in the end "not so sure, however, that the NATO-led operation in Libya remained a textbook R2P case for its duration." (23)

The RwP note primarily focused on remedying Brazil's foremost concerns raised by the three elements highlighted above, with all three centered around R2P's "third pillar," tantamount to the use of force. Brazilian diplomacy voiced concerns specifically about the utility of the use of force as a means of conflict resolution; (24) Brazil was concerned that undue robustness in the international response might "change the home-grown nature of the rebellion narrative and thus endanger the chances of a stable resolution of the conflict in the longer term," (25) Brazil had already criticized Pillar Ill's implementation in Libya. Brazil's permanent representative, Maria Luiza Viotti, argued in a July 2011 UN General Assembly debate that "caution and moderation are the best advisers" when implementing the third pillar of R2P and that "we must exercise responsibility as we protect," (26) a phrase taken up by President Dilma Rousseff during the Assembly's General Debate on 21 September 2011. (27)

Beyond immediate concerns over the effectiveness of military force, debate over the Libyan case became a showcase for larger tensions between established and emerging powers. The challenge to Western normative dominance crystallized into divergences over R2P's implementation, (28) with emerging powers preferring to use state sovereignty to attenuate the unequal distribution of power in the international system. (29) It is in this sense that RwP should be perceived as an exercise in asking for clarification of R2P implementation beyond its immediate link to the Libyan intervention, and as an example of norm entrepreneurship linked to broader issues of global governance. The latter was made possible by Brazil's status as an elected member of the Security Council at the time.

Indeed, the RwP concept, launched on 9 November 2011, marks Brazil's first serious effort at concerted norm entrepreneurship on a major issue within the UN system. Assessing the completion of this normative exercise on behalf of Brazil depends on how we define Brazil's initial aims. The note was conceived as a complement to, rather than a substitute for, R2P regarding its implementation. Accordingly, if its role is interpreted as initiating a more inclusive debate on the latter, with the involvement of Southern states, focused on R2P's implementation within a context of normative consensus concerning its principles, it has been a noteworthy example of a valuable bridge-building proposal, tantamount to norm "shaping." (30) However, if RwP is assessed as a classic example of original norm sponsorship, the same cannot be said. In this article, we approach RwP as the first of these two options. Furthermore, we suggest that as such, RwP is an example of an opportunity open to nonpermanent members of the Security Council. As is often the case in such instances, RwP's performance can ironically be assessed in terms of the criticism that it has generated.

Initial State Reactions: The Bridge-building Function

RwP initially met with skepticism from both Western and Southern states. The former saw it as an attempt by a nonparticipant state to limit the autonomy of NATO's implementation of Security Council mandates, and an unnecessary restriction on the Council practice, while some in the Global South, especially the other BRICS states, considered that it had gone too far in taking up R2P's conceptual acquis on the acceptability of military measures. Nonetheless, RwP played a crucial part both in moving R2P forward normatively and in stimulating buy-in from developing states, thus resuscitating the concept's broader legitimacy in the wake of the Libyan intervention.

RwP is much less an exercise designed to produce conceptual originality than one geared toward building political consensus conducive to the participation of skeptical Southern states. It is when viewed in this way that the RwP note reveals its true potential as a normative initiative: it is much less an effort to innovate with reference to R2P content than it is a promising attempt to engage simultaneously in what Amitav Acharya has termed "norm localization" and "subsidiarity," by means of creating a bridging notion that would make troubling aspects of the R2P norm palatable to skeptical states in the Global South. (31) This characterization of RwP responds to claims largely by Northern states that RwP's true intent was to slow the advance of R2P. One key element of such critiques was the fact that the note did not cite the ICISS report (32) and, indeed, took up some of its provisions as if they were innovations. (33) Australia, for example, highlighted RwP's similarity to the precautionary principles on military intervention in the ICISS report of 2001. (34) Arguments that this reduces the note's conceptual value added in terms of the ongoing R2P debate miss the point; namely, that the intention was not to innovate conceptually, but to attain broader diplomatic acceptability.

Nevertheless, in light of its past diplomatic positions on, and limited historical profile as a contributor to, humanitarian interventions, Brazil clearly had to overcome the healthy skepticism of some states, particularly leading NATO members, in convincing others that its proposal was more than a recipe for these states to "bind themselves to inaction." (35) Thorsten Benner points out that in light of Brazil's perceived reluctance to publicly distance itself from the Bashar al-Assad regime during 2011 and 2012, this trust was regained, and RwP was subsequently viewed more charitably following Brazil's eventual public chastisement of the Syrian government. (36)

Eduarda Hamann points out the difficulty in a state with limited participation seeking to establish limits for those with extensive means: "The current contradictory position could have problematic consequences. Brazilian argument seems to be directed at those who engage in military intervention and not at Brazil itself--a classic 'do as I say, not as I do' situation." (37) States, especially from the Global North, were critical of Brazil's intentions as well. In the February 2012 informal discussion, Germany, for instance, argued that RwP might be too limiting of R2P, in addition to focusing on expressing concerns rather than on proposing a "precisely defined concept." (38)

Yet as Thakur has suggested, (39) Brazil's position was clearly more constructive than that of the other BRICS states, particularly Russia and China. While these two permanent members of the Security Council are notorious for having vetoed four draft resolutions to date on Syria, they have also allowed twenty-six R2P-based Security Council resolutions to pass since Resolution 1973 on Libya. (40) Both Russia and China also recognized the Brazilian contribution. Russia, for instance, noted the "timeliness of the Brazilian idea, on the Responsibility while Protecting." (41) Brazil's position is consistent with the role of a normative entrepreneur as taken on by an emerging power with limited military projection capacity of its own. (42)

Specific Contributions: Structuring the R2P Conversation

Three main axes arise around which the note has structured the ensuing conversation. These underscore Brazil's faith in the power of stricter guidelines (43) to resolve R2P's crisis of legitimacy after Libya: the sequencing of R2P's pillars; increased restrictions on the use of force; and more proactive monitoring by the Security Council of mandate compliance by ongoing missions. These specific considerations as well as broader political issues--and, crucially, several related to international law--provided the bulk of public reaction to the responsibility while protecting concept note and served to provide waypoints for the R2P conversation over the subsequent years. Much like the global conversation about R2P itself, a good deal of the debate over the RwP note was guided by ideological and political differences between established and emerging powers derived from their relative position and historical experiences. However, a more concrete and, ultimately, most productive discussion grew out of engagement with the note's specific proposals.

While, as noted, RwP does not cite the ICISS report directly, having instead UN practice as its focus, the concept note nevertheless takes up elements established by ICISS and its just war criteria such as the need to exhaust all diplomatic means. (44) Its focus is on the utility of force and the potential for misuse of R2P by Western powers. The document's first real element of innovation--and one of its most controversial components--comes in its sixth paragraph where it first calls for the strict political and chronological sequencing of R2P's three pillars, and then establishes a conceptual distinction between collective responsibility and collective security. (45)

Sequencing was roundly rejected by Northern states as well as by some from the developing world, in addition to numerous nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) closely involved in the promotion of R2P. According to the initial RwP formulation, the three pillars of R2P "must follow a strict line of political subordination and chronological sequencing." (46) This was one of the most criticized elements of the original RwP proposal; and rightfully so, as it clearly went against the UN Charter and the main tenets of R2P. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon emphasizes in his annual reports on R2P to date, the three pillars of R2P bear equal importance and should be flexibly invoked on a case-by-case basis, acknowledging that "all three must be ready to be utilized at any point, as there is no set sequence for moving from one to another." (47)

In an attempt to clarify and adjust some of the elements presented in the concept paper, Brazil later redefined the sequencing of the three pillars of R2P as "logical" rather than chronological, thus silencing the main initial critique against it. Indeed, Ambassador Viotti suggested that sequencing "should be logical, based on political prudence [instead of] ... the establishment of arbitrary check-lists." (48)

Another key RwP proposal relates to imposing even stricter limits on the use of force, a source of explicit criticism of the sequencing proposal. While there is agreement among analysts that force should not be the first option in a crisis situation where other options should be thoroughly considered, there is also recognition of the fact that force cannot literally be the last option. A more stringent critique of the Brazilian proposal on the use of force, firmly rooted in Western conceptions, is that "stronger limits on the use of force limit the effectiveness of operations to protect civilians, and therewith ultimately their legitimacy itself." (49) RwP's "do no harm" principles strike at the core of Brazilian, South American, and Southern preferences for the nonuse of force, returning to NATO states' questioning of the true intent of RwP and their objections that RwP could justify a formula for inaction and ineffectiveness. (50)

The third key proposal that generated strong reaction, both from academics and Security Council member states, triggered in turn by the way in which the NATO-led mandate in Libya was implemented, relates to demands for closer and more proactive oversight of deployed operations by the Council. RwP suggested the need for the Council to establish a monitoring and review mechanism to enable all Council member states to be properly informed about the implementation of use-of-force mandates. (51)

While describing themselves as open, in principle, to exploring various ways to keep Security Council members more informed, key states also expressed concerns that "the Security Council should not be micromanaging military operations." (52) Analysts generally accept the fundamental necessity for increased mechanisms for accountability and monitoring by the Council and recognize the constructive potential in the Brazilian paper's call for enhancement of existing forms. However, there is certainly room for further development and more specificity on the composition of such a new monitoring and review body, and on potentially enhancing existing mechanisms. (53)

A further criticism of RwP is that it unduly conflates the jus ad bellum-based legal acquis of R2P with operational limits related to the legally distinct jus in bello. According to Inger Osterdahl, particularly the aspects in RwP's increased limitations on the use of force shadow jus in bello provisions in that they are explicitly intended to reduce the negative effects of the use of force once conflict has broken out. (54) For Osterdahl, however, in the case of multilateral interventions, the provisions for limiting force in the manner foreseen in the RwP note are thin. As a result, according to Osterdahl, there is in fact no binding requirement in the UN Charter stipulating that measures not involving the use of force be resorted to first; (55) rather, their primacy is a matter of political decision, much as are the limits placed on Chapter VII operations' use of force in Security Council practice.

Brazil's Withdrawal from Sponsoring RwP

The interest generated by RwP--with initial skepticism giving way to acceptance of its potential for broadening R2P's acceptance and thus deepening its legitimacy--translated later into encouragement, and certain expectations for further development. However, Brazilian diplomacy decided not to pursue the proposal further. In August 2012, Brazilian foreign minister Patriota declared that there was no intention to develop the proposal for further clarification to the international community. (56)

It appears that Brazilian diplomats themselves were surprised by the level of attention that RwP received. (57) Several factors account for the decline in interest in developing a diplomatic campaign to gather support for RwP. According to one Brazilian diplomat, the main cause was the fact that Brazil was no longer a member of the Security Council and, therefore, no longer in a position to have its voice heard as loudly or to influence how matters related to international peace and security are shaped normatively. (58) Indeed, this captures one of the most important findings that Brazil's initiative suggests; namely, that nonpermanent members of the Council can, and do, exercise normative influence during their term on the Council, albeit as norm shapers rather than originators. RwP was launched while Brazil was on the Council and was "dropped" after its term on the Council was concluded. It is in this context that emerging powers such as Brazil can get sufficient clout to count as "norm shapers," (59) as opposed to the more traditional norm setters such as the Permanent Five (P5).

As noted earlier, RwP was made possible in large part due to Patriota's personal interest in issues of sovereignty and intervention. Patriota personally took the lead in drafting the RwP note and in handling its presentation and furthering at the UN; (60) his individual entrepreneurship in this sense was key. RwP's prominence was tied to Patriota's person: the concept benefited significantly from his position as foreign minister and diminished significantly once he unexpectedly left the helm of the Foreign Ministry for domestic reasons in August 2013.

Patriota's exit as foreign minister, and his successor's less pronounced interest in security issues, together with President Rousseff's notorious disinterest in foreign policy and focus on the upcoming elections, appeared to have doomed RwP. Indeed, commentators of Brazilian politics have focused on Rousseff's belief that foreign policy could be a risk factor, which meant that controversial global initiatives such as RwP should be avoided. (61)

Top Brazilian decisionmakers reasoned that RwP was not worth the further investment of political capital, and perceived it as a case of remote and uncertain political payoffs but with real political costs--a "loss-making enterprise." (62) Brazilian diplomats did not expect the level of resistance with which the proposal was initially met, particularly coming from fellow Southern states. Perhaps due to certain isolation from public debate in the domestic context, the country's representatives were unaccustomed to the level of criticism that RwP initially drew.

Brazil's hasty withdrawal from RwP was severely criticized by commentators and civil society alike. Many expected Brazil to elaborate on the initial RwP concept paper of November 2011 and to promote it further. Civil society groups were critical of Brazil's withdrawal, arguing that Brazil set certain expectations by "putting proposals like RwP out there," but then showed no willingness to follow it through. (63) Some commentators argued that the Brazilian lack of endurance necessary to push the concept forward was "as deplorable as much of the short-sighted Western criticisms of the initiative." (64) And yet, in spite of Brazil pulling the plug, 2012 was the year that RwP was on everyone's lips at the UN when considering any R2P-related topics. (65)

Through the insertion of RwP in the R2P debate, the debate itself became symbolic of emerging powers' resistance to normative dominance of established powers in the face of a changing global distribution of power. This captures the essence of why the debate over RwP expands beyond its immediate link to the Libyan case and establishes it firmly as a case of emerging power norm entrepreneurship linked to broader issues of global governance. (66)

This also explains the wide range of interpretations of BRICS's conduct in the Libyan crisis and of motivations behind the RwP, of which we noted just a few. While some, particularly in the Global South, have optimistically interpreted the RwP as an honest and constructive attempt to contribute normatively to a global governance problem, (67) others have more pessimistically inscribed the Libyan vote and RwP itself in a pattern of overt resistance to the Western political dominance. (68) However, RwP's goal, as Brazil initially envisaged it and as Brazilian diplomats presented it, was to clarify the contentious aspects related to implementing Pillar III of R2P. Also, RwP was intended to express Brazil's discontent with NATO's perceived overstepping of its mandate and to allow Brazil to avail itself of this moment to play an active role in the intervention debate. The former was recognized by key states, some members of the Security Council. The United States, for example, during the informal dialogue on RwP organized by Brazil in February 2012, recognized that "Brazil's contribution to this debate can help us refine and advance our shared commitment to R2P." (69)

While its ultimate outcome remains unforeseeable, clearly the R2P debate has become not only a crucial element of some emerging powers' challenge to the established distribution of power, but a key locus for increased targeted consultation and cooperation in mounting that challenge. (70) In addition, intervention debates have become an important avenue for emerging powers to give normative content to their challenge to the established global order, in a constructive manner, thus allowing them to move beyond what Thakur once described as obstructionist stance. (71) As Thakur points out, this position has begun to bear fruit, putting an end to Western states' monopoly on the capacity to set universal global standards. (72) In this sense, "[e]merging powers are abandoning the position of ringside observers to the development of the responsibility to protect to assume roles as project designers--if not yet members of the implementation team." (73) To date, Brazil's RwP initiative is the most emphatic example of this movement.

At the global level, this was made possible by the normative platform provided by Brazil's term on the Security Council. At the domestic level, RwP's issuance came at a time that marked the first sustained period in which Brazil had sought to assert itself as a player at a truly global level. Combined, these international and domestic contexts contributed to its shaping of R2P and, thus, global perceptions on intervention. Indeed, RwP was intended to express Brazil's discontent with NATO's perceived overstepping of its mandate in Libya and to allow Brazil to play an active role in the intervention debate.

Under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Foreign Minister Celso Amorim (who later became defence minister) the country had begun consistently to operate with a global horizon and to become particularly active on issues of intervention, inter alia taking on a leadership role in MINUSTAH. The Lula-Amorim era was also marked by a notable opening of the foreign policy making process in Brazil, in terms of both inputs from civil society and closer ideological alignment of some foreign policy tenets with the political preferences of the ruling party.

However, Brazil's top leadership has clearly made a cost-benefit calculation that the initiative was no longer worth additional investment of Brazilian political capital. The political costs consisted of taking fire from many sides for the initiative, and Brazil was not prepared for the criticism and pushback it faced after it launched the RwP concept.

Regrettably, while prevention--a perennial tenet of Brazilian contributions to intervention debates--plays a key role in the proposal, the note's authors also did not include in it the crucial comparative advantage Brazil holds in participating in such operations: a pronounced ability to harness economic development and socioeconomic policies, such as poverty reduction to tackle root impediments to development such as inequality and marginalization. (74) As a result, the once promising breakthrough contribution has languished and RwP has been left floating astray, without a sponsor, in the past couple of years. Brazil did not produce a second concept paper, to clarify the first one, as was initially expected, and as of late 2015 appears to have dropped the initiative altogether. Other priorities took precedence, domestically and internationally. Brazil's withdrawal from sponsoring RwP leaves an unhealthy void in structuring how to address the basic tenets of discord surrounding the implementation of R2P's Pillar III.

By rather unique circumstances where a norm's patron itself decides to stop promoting it during its heyday, RwP found itself as a norm without a sponsor. Nevertheless, RwP played a crucial part in both stimulating the inclusion of developing states into the intervention debate and moving R2P forward, normatively. The note provided the framework for incipient avenues for future negotiations around the basic tenets of discord over R2P's implementation.

Based on the specific proposals briefly discussed in this article, RwP was Brazil's attempt to align R2P with its traditional foreign policy objectives, centered on strengthening the authority of the Security Council and prioritizing an international order in which all states are equal. This was a clear effort to localize the R2P norm through framing R2P's Pillar III in a way that closely resembles local beliefs. As a direct reflection of Brazil's local priorities, RwP seeks to emphasize prevention, to limit the use of force, to build criteria for the application of coercive interventions, and to enforce Brazil's commitment to working solely through the Council as the ultimate authority when force is used, in line with proportionality and last resort criteria.

Conclusion

The Responsibility While Protecting initiative provides an opportunity to observe several salient aspects of states' participation in global governance. RwP allows for insights into how emerging powers can couch their challenge of the current distribution of power in conceptual terms, contributing to shaping norms--rather than simply taking them--while unable fully yet to make them independently from a subaltern position. Alongside insights into the member states' debates on intervention at the UN--and a new major player's motivations--RwP opens the door to deeper analysis of the norm diffusion process itself, outlining the complex interplay between the weight of a concept's normative content and the political position of the actor who acts as its primary proponent.

The contentious Libyan intervention provided a window of opportunity for Brazil to make use of a fortuitous constellation of positional and normative factors to launch a notable normative initiative. We have outlined those factors here: the growing tensions between the normative background of R2P at the global level and Brazil's own prior commitments; its desire to use peace operations and interventions as a vehicle toward a greater international profile, especially doing so with a normative emphasis; the unique normative influence it was able to convey as an elected member of the Security Council; and the emergence within the Brazilian foreign policy establishment of a context of dynamism and a leadership personality with specific interest and know-how on the R2P issue.

Never designed as an innovation, the RwP concept note, after initial opposition, began to fulfill its function after a certain lag time. As we illustrated, it served to structure debate on R2P for several years after its launch, and it recently has enjoyed something of a resurgence as a potential means to breaking the international community's bloody deadlock over Syria. It is in this context of initiating a more inclusive debate on the R2P, centered around reaching normative consensus on its key tenets regarding the use of force, that we describe it as a noteworthy example of a valuable bridge-building proposal. However, Brazilian diplomats believed that it would suffice to launch the concept and allow it to stand on its own, without systematic and regular further investment of diplomatic capital.

Nonetheless, this approach has proven to be problematic. The fate of the RwP demonstrates that the shelf life, and normative impact, of conceptually based diplomatic initiatives bear a direct relationship to the stature of their originating states and to the relative investment they bring forth. For as long as the RwP enjoyed the full support of the Brazilian foreign policy establishment, it also enjoyed, in relative terms, considerable success by being taken up in a report of the Secretary-General, serving as a conceptual basis for further development of R2P's normative content, and effectively laying out the structure of the political conversation on R2P. In the absence of further support from its primary patron, its impact has been relegated to the last of these three factors.

Brazil's recent withdrawal from sponsoring RwP emphasizes the urgent need for renewed support for such initiatives that tackle the basic tenets of discord over R2P's implementation. Active support is certainly needed for a norm's progress. With renewed Brazilian support--perhaps in concert with like-minded emerging and established powers such as India, Germany, and South Africa--the concept retains significant potential to contribute positively to a key aspect of global governance today.

Notes

Kai Michael Kenkel is on the permanent faculty at the Institute for International Relations at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and an associated researcher at the German Institute for Global Affairs. He acknowledges generous support provided by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and the Rio de Janeiro State Research Support Foundation (FAPERJ). Cristina G. Stefan (formerly Badescu) is lecturer in International Relations at the University of Leeds and previously taught at Western University and the University of Toronto. She published the monograph Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: Security and Human Rights (2011) and articles in journals including Security Dialogue, Canadian Journal of Political Science, Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, and International Studies Perspectives.

(1.) Permanent Mission of the Federative Republic of Brazil to the United Nations, "Responsibility While Protecting: Elements for the Development and Promotion of a Concept," UN Doc. A/66/551-S/2011/701 (9 November 2011), http://www .globalr2p.org/media/files/concept-paper-_rwp.pdf, accessed 9 November 2015.

(2.) UN Security Council, Res. S/RES/1973, The Situation in Libya (17 March 2011), http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N11/268/39/PDF/N1126839 .pdf?OpenElement, accessed 9 March 2014.

(3.) The "norm shaper" approach is explained in more detail in Cristina Stefan's forthcoming article "'Norm Shapers by Circumstance': A Closer Look at the 'Responsibility While Protecting' and Non-Western Normative Initiatives," based on a paper presented at the International Studies Association annual convention in New Orleans, February 2015.

(4.) Kai Michael Kenkel, "South America's Emerging Power: Brazil as Peacekeeper," International Peacekeeping 17, no. 5 (2010): 644-661; "Out of South America to the Globe: Brazil's Growing Stake in Peace Operations," in Kai Michael Kenkel, ed., South America and Peace Operations: Coming of Age (London: Routledge, 2013), pp. 85-110.

(5.) See Kai Michael Kenkel, "Brazil and R2P: Does Taking Responsibility Mean Using Force?" Global Responsibility to Protect 4, no. 1 (2012): 3-29.

(6.) Ramesh Thakur, The Responsibility to Protect: Norms, Laws and the Use of Force in International Politics (New York: Routledge, 2011), p. 144.

(7.) See the contributions to Conflict, Security and Development 14, no. 4 (2014); Rama Mani and Thomas G. Weiss, eds., Responsibility to Protect: Cultural Perspectives in the Global South (London: Routledge, 2011); Gareth Evans, The Responsibility to Protect--Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2009), p. 53.

(8.) Alex J. Bellamy, Global Politics and the Responsibility to Protect: From Words to Deeds (London: Routledge, 2011), pp. 43ff.

(9.) UN General Assembly, "World Summit Outcome," UN Doc. A/RES/60/1 (24 October 2005).

(10.) See Kai Michael Kenkel, "Brazil's Peacebuilding in Africa and Haiti," Journal of International Peacekeeping 17, no. 3-4 (2013): 272-292.

(11.) See Jeffrey Checkel, "Norms, Institutions and National Identity in Contemporary Europe," Working Paper No. 98/16 (Copenhagen: Advanced Research on the Europeanization of the Nation-State, University of Oslo, 1998); Stefan A. Schirm, "Leaders in Need of Followers: Emerging Powers in Global Governance," European Journal of International Relations 16, no. 2 (2010): 197-221.

(12.) See Phil Orchard, "Review Article: The Evolution of the Responsibility to Protect: At a Crossroads?" International Affairs 88, no. 2 (2012): 377-386, especially 378.

(13.) Diplomats at the Permanent Mission of Brazil to the UN, interviewed by the second author, New York, 20 June 2014.

(14.) See, for example, Justin Morris, "Libya and Syria: R2P and the Spectre of the Swinging Pendulum f International Affairs 89, no. 5 (2013): 1272.

(15.) See Aidan Hehir, "The Permanence of Inconsistency: Libya, the Security Council, and the Responsibility to Protect," International Security 38, no. 1 (Summer 2013): 137-159, at 146.

(16.) Diplomats involved in the process, personal communication with the first author, 10 April 2015; Paul D. Williams and Alex J. Bellamy, "Principles, Politics, and Prudence: Libya, the Responsibility to Protect, and the Use of Military Force," Global Governance 18, no. 3 (2012): 281.

(17.) See http://responsibilitytoprotect.org/Security%20Council%20meeting%20on %20the%20situation%20in%20Lybia%2017%20March%202011.pdf, accessed 22 April 2015.

(18.) Carlos Chagas Vianna Braga, "Peacekeeping, R2P, RwP and the Question of the Use of Force," in Eduarda Hamann and Robert Muggah, eds., Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: New Directions for International Peace and Security? (Brasilia: Instituto Igarape, 2013), p. 32.

(19.) See Gareth Evans's discussion regarding the BRICS's reaction in "The Consequences of Non-intervention in Syria: Does the Responsibility to Protect Have a Future?" in Robert W. Murray and Alasdair McKay, eds., Into the Eleventh Hour: R2P, Syria and Humanitarianism in Crisis (Bristol: E-International Relations, 2014), pp. 19-20.

(20.) Alcides Costa Vaz, "Brazilian Perspectives on the Changing Global Order and Security Challenges," in Michael Emerson and Renato Flores, eds., Enhancing the Brazil-EU Strategic Partnership: From the Bilateral and Regional to the Global (Brussels: Centre for European Policy Studies; Rio de Janeiro: Fundacao Gctulio Vargas, 2013), p. 196.

(21.) Patrick Quinton-Brown, "The Responsibility While Protecting: Linchpin or Trojan Horse?" in Eduarda Hamann and Robert Muggah, eds., Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: New Directions for International Peace and Security? (Brasilia: Institute Igarape, 2013), p. 65.

(22.) Naomi Kikoler, "Emerging Powers and Mass Atrocity Prevention--Brazil," paper prepared for the Nexus Fund, http://ceas-serbia.org/root/images/Emerging_Powers_and_Mass_Atrocity_Prevention- Brazil.pdf, accessed 15 March 2014.

(23.) Gareth Evans, Ramesh Thakur, and Robert A. Pape, "Correspondence: Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect," International Security 37, no. 4 (2013): 206.

(24.) Williams and Bellamy, "Principles, Politics, and Prudence," p. 281.

(25.) Paul D. Williams, "The Road to Humanitarian War in Libya," Global Responsibility to Protect 3, No. 2 (2011): 258, quoted in Paula Wojcikiewicz Almeida, "From Non-indifference to Responsibility While Protecting: Brazil's Diplomacy and the Search for Global Norms," Global Powers and Africa Programme Occasional Paper 138. Johannesburg: South African Institute for International Affairs, April 2013 (1), footnote 50, p. 11. See also Morris, "Libya and Syria," p. 1272.

(26.) Brazil, "Statement During Informal Interactive Dialogue: The Role of Regional and Sub-regional Arrangements in Implementing the Responsibility to Protect," 12 July 2011, www.globalr2p.org/media/files/brazil-stmt.pdf, accessed 10 February 2015.

(27.) Brazil, "Statement at the Opening of the General Debate of the 66th Session of the United Nations General Assembly," 21 September 2011, http://gadebate.un .org/sites/default/files/gastatements/66/BR_en_0.pdf, accessed 10 February 2015.

(28.) See El Hassan bin Talal and Rolf Schwarz, "The Responsibility to Protect and the Arab World: An Emerging International Norm?" Contemporary Security Policy 34, no. 1 (2013): 7-10.

(29.) See Julian Culp and Johannes Plagemann, "Hooray for Global Justice? Emerging Democracies in a Multipolar World," Working Paper No. 242 (Hamburg: German Institute for Global Affairs, 2013), pp. 7-13.

(30.) See, for example, Pu Xiaoyu, "Socialization as a Two-way Process: Emerging Powers and the Diffusion of International Norms," Chinese Journal of International Politics 5, no. 4 (2012): 341-367, at 356-359.

(31.) See Amitav Acharya, "Norm Subsidiarity and Regional Orders: Sovereignty, Regionalism, and Rule-making in the Third World," International Studies Quarterly 55, no. 1 (2011): 95-123; Jochen Prantl and Ryoko Nakano, "Global Norm Diffusion in East Asia: How China and Japan Implement the Responsibility to Protect," International Relations 25, no. 2 (2011): 204-223.

(32.) International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2001).

(33.) Brazil, "Responsibility While Protecting," par. 3.

(34.) Australia, '"Responsibility While Protecting,' Statement by Mr. Gary Quinlan, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Australia to the UN," 21 February 2012, http://australia-unsc.gov.au/2012/02/responsibility-while-protecting/, accessed 30 March 2015.

(35.) United States, "Remarks by the United States at an Informal Discussion on 'Responsibility While Protecting,"' 21 February 2012, http://usun.state.gov/briefing /statements/184487.htm, accessed 16 March 2015.

(36.) Thorsten Benner, "Brazil as a Norm Entrepreneur: The 'Responsibility While Protecting' Initiative," Working Paper (Berlin: Global Public Policy Institute, March 2013), pp. 7-8.

(37.) Eduarda Passarelli Hamann, "Brazil and R2P: A Rising Global Player Struggles to Harmonise Discourse ande Practice," in Malte Brosig, ed., The Responsibility to Protect: From Evasive to Reluctant Action (Johannessburg: Hanns Seidel Foundation, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Institute for Security Studies, and South African Institute of International Affairs, 2012), p. 82.

(38.) See Derek McDougall, "Responsibility While Protecting: Brazil's Proposal for Modifying Responsibility to Protect," Global Responsibility to Protect 6, no. 1 (2014): 64-87, at 75.

(39.) Ramesh Thakur, "R2P After Libya and Syria: Engaging Emerging Powers," Washington Quarterly 36 (2013): 71.

(40.) See Global Centre for R2P, "UN Security Council Resolutions Referencing R2P," 23 April 2013, www.globalr2p.org/resources/335, accessed 30 March 2015.

(41.) Russian Federation, "Statement to the General Assembly During Dialogue on RtoP: Timely and Decisive Response," 2012, http://responsibilitytoprotect.org /index.php/document-archive/government, accessed 30 March 2015.

(42.) See Oliver Stuenkel, "The BRICS and the Future of R2P: Was Syria or Libya the Exception?" Global Responsibility to Protect 6, no. 1 (2014): footnote 79, p. 18; Benner, "Brazil as a Norm Entrepreneur."

(43.) See Paula Wojcikiewicz Almeida, "From Non-indifference to Responsibility While Protecting."

(44.) Brazil, "Responsibility While Protecting," par. 7.

(45.) Ibid., par. 6.

(46.) Ibid.

(47.) See, for example, the 2009 Report of the UN Secretary-General, Implementing the Responsibility to Protect, UN Doc. A/63/677 (12 January 2009), par. 12, p. 9.

(48.) Brazil, Statement by Ambassador Maria Luiza Viotti, 5 September 2012, http: //responsibilitytoprotect.org/index.php/component/content/article/35-r2pcs-tpics, accessed 13 December 2014.

(49.) Maxwell Kelly, "Fighting for Their Lives: R2P, RwP and the Utility of Force to Protect Civilians," in Eduarda Hamann and Robert Muggah, eds., Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: New Directions for International Peace and Security? (Brasilia: Instituto Igarape, 2013), pp. 51, 52.

(50.) Ibid., p. 55.

(51.) Brazil, "Responsibility While Protecting," par. 11(h).

(52.) See, for instance, the Australian position during the informal UN General Assembly dialogue on RwP, hosted by the Permanent Mission of Brazil, footnote 37.

(53.) See, for example, Jennifer Welsh, Patrick Quinton-Brown, and Victor MacDiarmid, "Brazil's 'Responsibility While Protecting' Proposal: A Canadian Perspective," Canadian Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, 12 July 2013, http://ccr2p.org /?p=616, accessed 16 March 2014,

(54.) Inger Osterdahl, "The Responsibility to Protect and the Responsibility While Protecting: Why Did Brazil Write a Letter to the UN?" Nordic Journal of International Law 82, no. 4(2013): 466.

(55.) Ibid., p. 468.

(56.) Almeida, "From Non-Indifference," p. 63.

(57.) Member of civil society in close contact to Brazilian Permanent Mission during 201182012, interviewed by the second author, New York, 19 June 2014.

(58.) Diplomat at the Permanent Mission of Brazil to the UN, interviewed by the second author, 20 June 2014.

(59.) For more details on the notion of "norm shapers," see Stefan's forthcoming "'Norm Shapers by Circumstance': A Closer Look at the 'Responsibility while Protecting' and Non-Western Normative Initiatives," footnote 3.

(60.) Member of civil society working closely with the Brazilian Mission to the UN during 2011-2012, personal communication with the second author, 19 June 2014.

(61.) See Oliver Stuenkel and Marcos Tourinho, "Regulating Intervention: Brazil and the Responsibility to Protect," Conflict, Security and Development 14, no. 4 (2014): 379-402, at 395.

(62.) Benner, "Brazil as a Norm Entrepreneur," pp. 8-9.

(63.) Members of civil society, personal communication with the second author.

(64.) See, for example, Benner, "Brazil as a Norm Entrepreneur," pp. 8-9.

(65.) Diplomat at the Permanent Mission of Brazil to the UN, interviewed by the second author.

(66.) See Benner, "Brazil as a Norm Entrepreneur."

(67.) For the optimistic view, see Oliver Stuenkel, "The BRICS," in Eduarda Hamann and Robert Muggah, eds., Brazil as a Norm Entrepreneur: The Responsibility While Protecting (Brasilia: Igarape Institute, 2013), pp. 59-62. A more critical view is taken by Steen Fryba Christensen, "Brazil's Foreign Policy Priorities," Third World Quarterly 34, no. 2 (2013): 271-286; Zaki Lai'di, "BRICS: Sovereignty, Power and Weakness," International Politics 49, no. 5 (2012): 626-629; and Stewart Patrick, "Irresponsible Stakeholders? The Difficulty of Integrating Rising Powers," Foreign Affairs 89, no. 6 (2010): 44-53.

(68.) See Aidan Hehir, The Responsibility to Protect: Rhetoric, Reality and the Future of Humanitarian Intervention (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 180-208.

(69.) United States, "Remarks by the United States at an Informal Discussion on 'Responsibility While Protecting,"' at footnote 37.

(70.) See, for example, Almeida, "From Non-indifference"; Stuenkel, "The BRICS."

(71.) Thakur, The Responsibility to Protect, pp. 153-159.

(72.) Ramesh Thakur, "R2P After Libya and Syria: Engaging Emerging Powers," p. 62. Thakur specifically relates this development, and the effects of the Libyan intervention to the need to develop legitimacy criteria for R2P.

(73.) Luis Paulo Bogliolo, "The Responsibility to Protect and the Responsibility While Protecting: An Analysis of Humanitarian Intervention and the Developing World," Social Science Research Network, 20 August 2012, p. 20, http: //papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN ID2201588 code 1960675.pdf?abstractid=2201588&mirid=1, accessed 15 March 2014.

(74.) See Bellamy, Global Politics and the Responsibility to Protect, pp. 93-121, on the role of development issues in the advancement of R2P.