보호책임(R2P)의 이론과 실행 - 미얀마 사태 및 우크라이나 전쟁에 대한 최근 국제사회의 대응을 포함하여 -

During the initial stage of the Myanmar crisis resulting from the military coup in February 2021, many civilians pointed out “R2P” and shouted it towards the international community. This reminds us of the 10-year-ago Arab Spring and the Libyan crisis to which the R2P principle was directly applied. In fact, the concept of ‘the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)’ includes various implementation mechanisms, and is also related to many actors, and also considered in several stages and phases in an organic and dynamic way. However, the general understanding of it seems to be something similar to the traditional (armed) humanitarian intervention or so, partly due to the successful or failed application of it to the Libyan and Syrian cases about ten years ago. On this occasion, it is necessary to review the detailed contents and practice of the principle up to now, and consider critically its usefulness and implications to the current cases. It is notable, in this vein, the UN General Assembly adopted R2P as its official annual agenda again in May 2021. More challenging moment was brought by the Russo-Ukrainian war waged in February 2022. A permanent member of the UN Security Council that originally should have held its primary responsibility over international peace and security actually invaded its neighbor. This aggressive war raised another very closely related issue, that is the reform of the Security Council. There had been so many discussions about it mostly in vain, but this time the UN General Assembly adopted, in April 2022, a new “debate” procedure that makes any Security Council permanent members who have vetoed explain the reasons and discuss with other UN members in the General Assembly within ten working days after the exercise of the veto power. This paper reviews basic theory of R2P from traditional humanitarian intervention and discussions in and out of the UN, and then consider briefly up-to-now applications of it to actual cases, including Sudan Darfur, Libya, Syria, and North Korea. Based on this, it looks into the current Myanmar crisis and the Russo-Ukrainian War in a critical but little bit hopeful way, and lastly this paper tries to provide several practical implications and suggestions in the context of the R2P and the UN system reform.