ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses two scenarios where moral authority is contested: the first scenario addresses the Kadi case. In this legal case, the reconstruction of the contested claims for the responsibility to protect fundamental rights of individuals by the UN Security Council (UNSC) and the European Court of Justice (ECJ) demonstrate that effectively the political challenge to moral authority is at stake. The second scenario addresses contestations of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). In this case, the contestations are initiated by the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) states, and therefore from within the normative structure of the UN. The fundamental norm of sovereign rights of states is at stake. As both instances of contestation reveal, the mere observation of contested normativity does not suffice for drawing conclusions about fading authority. While challenging the moral authority of the UNSC, these contestations thus effectively allow for soft diplomacy to unfold by way of participatory regular contestation.
