The Crisis of the "Responsibility to Protect" Doctrine in the Light of the Syrian Civil War

Resolution 2118 on chemical disarmament in Syria broke the diplomatic impasse over Syria within the Security Council (SC). Its adoption has been celebrated as the victory of multilateralism over unilateralism, averting the threat of military intervention. However, Resolution 2118 was not adopted within Chapter VII of the UN Charter and neither contains reference to the responsibility to protect (R2P) principle. Therefore, the Syrian issue will be considered a "paradigm" of the turning point of R2P. In this regard, this article discusses why the international community reacted in a dissimilar way to the Libyan and Syrian civil wars and what is the impact of this discrepancy on the legal status of R2P. The article discusses the current practice of R2P, arguing that its future should take the form of an informal commitment by the fi ve permanent members not to wield their veto power in cases of gross violations of human rights.