Syria

The Syrian civil war stands as the most serious failure of the responsibility to prevent since the adoption of R2P in 2005. As the war has continued, there have been atrocities and abuse committed against vulnerable populations on a widespread and systematic scale. This article focuses on the atrocity prevention efforts undertaken in the first phase of the crisis from March 2011 to August 2012. It shows that while there were multiple tools utilized by a range of local, regional, and international actors, none of them had a lasting impact on the commission of atrocity crimes in Syria. This failure is due to five principal reasons. First, engagement to prevent atrocities came too late. Second, domestic and regional conditions were not conducive to prevention. Third, there was little reason for the warring parties to compromise. Fourth, there was a disconnect between what Western states wanted to achieve in Syria and what they were prepared to do about it. And fifth, the UN’s envoys had limited options for engagement.