ABSTRACT
The chapter examines the simultaneous consolidation and contestation of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) by analyzing debates within the UN Security Council through the analytical lens of storytelling. We situate the paper within the developing literature of narrative studies in International Relations (IR). We provide an analysis of what we call public narratives of R2P: From the classic storyline about three discrete but plot-wise succeeding responsibilities in the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Building (ICISS), via a more episodic reformulation of R2P at the 2005 World Summit to Ban Ki-moon’s narrative of three pillars. Following this, we turn to the specific case of the UN Security Council Resolution 1973 and the situation in Libya to reconstruct how diplomats tell a story about R2P using these public narratives as well as others, such as national ones. When utilizing different narrative repertoires to compose their own story about R2P, diplomats not only construct a specific narration as ‘real,’ but at the same time outline differing versions regarding characters, settings, conflicts and resolutions leading to alternative beginnings and/or endings in their plot. As the paper demonstrates, the analytical lens of storytelling allows us to analyze how diplomats talk about R2P in general with reference to Libya. This, in turn, allows us as IR scholars to better understand R2P’s simultaneous consolidation and contestation.
