Abstract

This article explores how the UK’s selective neglect in linking the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) to its peaceful responses to Syria reinforces the claim that R2P is predominantly understood as military humanitarian intervention, which is deleterious for building international consensus for atrocity prevention and response. It does this through an empirical case study of the UK’s responses to Syria during 2014-2016 when the UK’s peaceful responses expanded, providing rich data for examining their underlying motivations. The article provides a case study of the UK’s contestation of R2P’s peaceful measures that builds upon existing work around the limits of contestation and norm degeneration due to how it feeds back to the international level. The article also explores the intersection between contestation and localisation and how the UK’s particular localisation of R2P feeds into claims and fears of western imperialism, which obstructs effective atrocity prevention and response.