Yang Razali Kassim

The Arab Uprisings and the P5 Powers

The wave of Arab revolts in the Middle East and North Africa since December 2010 is the most significant outbreaks of inter-related uprisings at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Popularly known as the Arab Spring, the Arab Uprisings as it should be more appropriately called, have engulfed the wider international community in the most intense diplomatic wars in the modern era. Global concerns over the outbreak of atrocities and the destabilising effects of the revolts have led to high-level realpolitik pitting two major camps—those who are pushing for international intervention to protect civilian populations led largely by the West and industrialised North versus those who are resisting this push in the name of state sovereignty and the principle of non-interference led mainly by Russia, China and the developing South. For the first time, the Arab world has been openly split, as Arab brethrens are forced to take sides against Arab brethrens, even advocating intervention in Libya and Syria and finding themselves as bedfellows with the Western powers. The revolt of the masses in the Middle East—or West Asia as some would prefer to call the region—is yet to come to an end. But the intense power politics in the UN suggest that the future of the Middle East will be defined more by the Permanent Five than the Arab world itself.

Geopolitics of Intervention: Way Forward

The rise of R2P and the doctrine of international humanitarian intervention has triggered a backlash on the UN. As the critiques grew in tenor and intensity since the outbreak of the Arab Uprisings, an unlikely diplomatic battle has been brewing in the UN which could shape the future course of R2P and humanitarian intervention. At the core of this battle is the rise of the ‘Small Five’ or S5 that attempt to limit the unbridled veto power of the P5. The motivating force of the S5 is the R2P-related concept of RN2V—the responsibility not to veto. Beyond the UN reform, scholars are looking at what they call the new politics of protection and where R2P and international humanitarian intervention fit into the larger phenomenon of the emerging global order. A major question being explored is whether the trend towards international humanitarian intervention will give rise to an “Eastphalian order” in which the principle of sovereignty, now under threat largely from the West, is being defended by the East and the non-Western powers.

China as a P5 Player

The outbreak of the Arab Uprisings has brought to the fore the growing diplomatic heft of China, the only Asian member of the Permanent Five in the UN Security Council. Together with Russia, China has been putting its stamp on how the political crises in the Middle East and North Africa should be handled and resolved by the international community. At the heart of China’s approach to conflict resolution by the Security Council is its defence of the long-standing principle of state sovereignty and how this should be reconciled with the growing push by the international community, largely by the West, for humanitarian intervention—a concept that remains controversial and perceived by the developing South and weak states as a cloak for neo-imperialism. The resulting fundamental tension between these competing pulls is manifested in the power politics at the UN. China’s position over the issue of international humanitarian intervention in Libya and Syria, is itself, however, under pressure at home as domestic critics debate Beijing’s traditional conservative adherence to the principle of non-interference. In truth, China’s attitude towards the idea of international humanitarian intervention is still evolving.

Rise of the Responsibility While Protecting (RWP)

The outbreak of a wave of people power revolts, starting in Tunisia in December 2010 and spreading quickly throughout the Middle East and North Africa, caused unprecedented instability in a politically sensitive region. Like a sudden volcanic eruption, the conflagration was as stunning as it was surprising, triggering major societal upheavals from Libya and Egypt to Yemen, Bahrain and Syria, apart from leading to political changes in other regional states such as Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco, Kuwait, Lebanon and Oman. The revolts or the Arab Spring, as they are popularly referred to in the media, are in effect the Arab Revolution and one of modern history’s unexpected political phenomena. They also put to severe test the United Nations’ experiment in the fledgling international relations doctrine known as the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), adopted by the world body just 5 years earlier in 2005. R2P was designed to bridge the gulf between naked unilateral international intervention as in the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, on the one hand, and international helplessness in the face of mass atrocity crimes within the borders of sovereign states, on the other. R2P would permit and justify international intervention only as a last resort—when states fail, are unwilling, or are even breaching their responsibility to protect their own people through state-induced mass atrocity crimes. R2P was invoked for the first time by the UN during the Arab Uprisings, but quickly became controversial for leading to regime change in Libya. The subsequent backlash against R2P saw many countries opposed to its application in Syria and is widely seen as the key cause of the current political stalemate in the UN. Attempts to unblock the diplomatic logjam at the UN has given rise to a new initiative known as ‘responsibility while protecting’ (RWP). But is RWP a counter-response to roll back R2P, or is it a move to better implement R2P as the new doctrine to resolve the international community’s dilemma over human suffering?

China, India, Japan and an Emerging Eastphalian Order?

The growing influence of China and India in international politics, concomitant with their rise as emerging powers, has encouraged scholars to assess more closely the phenomenon of the rise of the East. In the context of the doctrine of the responsibility to protect and humanitarian intervention, some have even theorised about the possible emergence arguably and perhaps quite controversially of an ‘Eastphalian’order. Continuing from the previous discussion on China’s role as a P5 player, this chapter looks at the positions of two other Asian powers—India and Japan—and the domestic tensions they respectively face in the whole debate about R2P and international humanitarian intervention. Whilst India is an emerging power at a time when Japan is seen as waning, though not necessarily in terminal decline, what are the potential roles—or otherwise—of both Asian states in the prospective Eastphalian order?

Critiques and Critics of R2P

Since its emergence as a bold idea in the ICISS report of 2001 and subsequently adopted by the UN at the 2005 World Summit, R2P has remained deeply controversial for its inherent support of the doctrine of international humanitarian intervention, notwithstanding critical differences between the concept of humanitarian intervention and R2P. Indeed, despite the UN embrace, R2P has not gone very far in terms of its implementation by member states. But the Libya crisis in 2011 marked R2P’s high point when for the first time, the UN invoked R2P to pass a resolution in support of international intervention in that country to protect civilians from mass atrocity crimes. Yet, that intervention has not been without problems. This chapter reviews some of the critiques and critics of R2P since the outbreak of the Arab Spring.

ASEAN and R2P

Amongst the many that endorsed R2P in 2005 during the UN World Summit were the ASEAN states. Yet, R2P has enjoyed only lip service in Southeast Asia. A key factor behind this is the principle of non-interference, a key doctrine in the group’s worldview in inter-state relations. This chapter reviews the reasons for this lukewarm attitude towards R2P and where the ASEAN states stand over the issue of international intervention especially Libya and Syria. Notwithstanding the ambivalent reception to R2P in Southeast Asia, efforts are being made by scholars and think tanks to mainstream the concept within policy-making. Is a typology of R2P positions within ASEAN emerging?