An interesting essay on R2P

[bcholmes]

There is the deeper problem with R2P [Responsibility to Protect] -- namely, that the states with the "capacity to act" may use this new right and escape from the sovereign equality premise of the UN Charter to attack as a matter of expediency and self-interest. Is there any reason to believe that there is a new morality in the leaders of the dominant states to prevent this, and is it a coincidence that, in this era of pressure for a R2P, it comes primarily from a country that has openly declared a determination to dominate and has committed major Charter violations repeatedly in the past decade? [...]

It is a stunning fact that of the 14 indictments and arrest warrants to have been issued by the ICC [International Criminal Court] through mid-2009, all 14 were against black Africans from four countries (the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Uganda, and the Sudan), and not a single one of these 14 indictments was brought against a client of the great Western powers (such as Rwanda's President Paul Kagame and Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni, perhaps the most prolific tandem of killers to rule on the African continent during the current era).

— Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, The Responsibility to Protect, the International Criminal Court, and Foreign Policy in Focus: Subverting the UN Charter in the Name of Human Rights

Not that David Peterson.

To a large extent, I believe in the ideals of the UN. I think it's pretty dysfunctional at the moment. And I think that the historical veto-holders need to have that power taken away from them.