Description
This paper discusses how key actors in the EU system navigate the multiple possible normative references shaping rationales for the protection of civilians in conflict and therefore affecting resource mobilization and operational planning. Evidence exists that policy frameworks dealing with civilian protection have been ‘localized’ (Zimmermann 2016; Zwingel 2012) by the EU. For example, we know that the EU has imported ‘human security’ from the UN (Martin and Owen 2010) and the ‘comprehensive approach’ from NATO (De Franco and Rynning 2016; Drent 2011; Gross 2008) and reshaped them substantially to fit its own structure and culture. We also know that the EU has developed its own R2P implementation plan (Brockmeier et al. 2014; De Franco et al. 2015; De Franco and Rodt 2016; Gottwald 2012). This paper goes a step further and clarifies how EU’s officials and diplomats participate in practices where they not only adopt and adapt but also combine different protective frameworks and ultimately reify different logics of protection. To elucidate how practices constitute different rationales and prescriptions (and vice versa), the paper studies different institutional settings, actors (within the institutional settings, i.e. EU officials and Member States representatives) and time/crises (Mali and the migrant crisis).
