The transformation concepts of humanitarian intervention and responsibility to protect from Kosovo to Syria

This study analyzes the transformation of concepts of humanitarian intervention and responsibility to protect from the emergence of concepts to the present day. Despite the many examples of United Nations (UN) and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) involvement, In this study, the approach of the international community to different problems has been examined on the basis of UN and NATO documents through examples of Kosovo, Libya and Syria. Kosovo was chosen as the first example, instead of humanitarian intervention examples like Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Darfur because of the Kosovo intervention, that does not fall into the exception of the use of force, was explained by NATO for humanitarian reasons. The Libyan intervention and the Syrian crisis were selected as recent examples from after the responsibility to protect was accepted. It is known that states have resorted to use of force for a variety of reasons including humanitarian reasons. The UN treaty prohibits states from applying for use of force in international relations. According to this, use of force in international relations are accepted to be in accordance with the law in the case of self-defense and as a result of the UN Security Council empowerment. The use of force for humanitarian reasons has not been regulated between the exceptions to the prohibition of the use of force. By the end of the Cold War, bipolar international system disintegrated and nature of wars changed. With this change humanitarian intervention has begun to be discussed more intensively in the literature. After the NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999, without the UN Security Council authorization, these debates have focused on the moral and legal aspects of interventions. On this basis, the responsibility to protect was adopted in order to determine the limits of the humanitarian intervention. The concept of responsibility to protect, which emphasizes that the protection of citizens in a country is primarily the responsibility of the relevant state and then the international community, It was first implemented in 2011 in Libya following the adoption at the UN level. With the influence of the Arab Spring, the uprising in Libya turned into a civil war and the UN intervened with the UN Security Council resolution number 1973. The fact that the operation of Libya was carried out with the authorization of the UN Security Council is important because it shows that human intervention has a legal basis. According to the general opinion in the literature, the responsibility to protect in Libya has been successfully implemented. On the other hand, there has been a civil war in Syria since 2011, where millions of people are injured or displaced, the third column of responsibility to protect, international responsibility, can not be implemented. The UN Security Council's permanent members, the Russian Federation and China, veto the decisions that enforce sanctions on Syria Causing the UN to be paralyzed. In decisions taken by the UN Security Council and official discourses emphasis is placed on the first pillar of the responsibility to protect, which includes the responsibility of the state concerned. This situation emphasizes the political dimension rather than the legal dimension of the responsibility to protect. As a result, it is determined that the responsibility to protect is not an international law rule, but an emerging norm.