The politics of peace enforcement: explaining selective UN security council interventions in atrocity crimes, 2005–2025

Thesis

In 2005, the world’s states unanimously adopted the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). In doing so, they committed to intervene in atrocity crimes, through the United Nations (UN) Security Council, when states manifestly fail to protect their citizens and diplomacy proves ineffective. Yet, the Council’s track record is poor: it has authorized coercive measures in just eight atrocity situations since. This thesis explains the selectivity of so-called “humanitarian” interventions through a novel framework distinguishing three types of conditions: preclusive conditions that categorically block intervention, necessary conditions that must be met it to occur, and enabling factors that increase its likelihood but are not required. It argues that intervention is automatically precluded when a situation does not reach the Council agenda, or the perpetrator is a P5 state or nuclear power. In almost all other cases, it occurs only when a sequenced process of events unfolds: fatalities exceed 1,000, UN officials characterize the violence as atrocity crimes, and a regional organization requests or endorses intervention. These “trigger” events produce two forms of consensus—that the violence constitutes a threat to international peace and security, and that peaceful means are inadequate—necessary for a majority of Council members, including all the P5, to support or permit coercive action. Importantly, such agreement is contingent on an additional constraint: the perpetrator state must lack a P5 ally. Absent any one of these conditions, the decision-making process stalls, resulting in inaction. These claims are tested through case study analysis, examining three positive cases—Côte d’Ivoire (2011), Libya (2011), and Sudan (2006)—and three negative ones, Syria (2011), Myanmar (2017), and Kenya (2008). The findings suggest that while interventions in atrocity crimes are not random, they require a rare convergence of material, institutional, and political conditions, helping to explain why they remain exceptional events in international relations. The findings also reveal how regional organizations shape the political viability of external intervention in state-led atrocities.

Authors: Whidden, G

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-kepqyd7vd
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: protection of civilians; international law; UN Security Council; decision-making; international norms; atrocity crimes; United Nations; geopolitics; responsibility to protect; humanitarian intervention; genocide and atrocity prevention
• Subjects: Global Governance; International Organizations; Human Rights; International Security; Peace and Conflict Studies; International Law; International Relations