Horizontal Inequality and Violence in Cote d’Ivoire: The Complexity of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) Doctrine

Armed violence in Cote d’Ivoire, deepened by horizontal inequality between the Christian South and the Muslim North, plummeted the country into two civil wars. To prevent international human rights breaches, the principle of RtoP was executed through the United Nations Office in Cote d’Ivoire (UNOIC) to effectively protect civilians from the cumulative acts of atrocities committed by forces loyal to Gbagbo and Ouattara. Given that there are limited studies on RtoP and horizontal inequality, this chapter analyzed the legitimacy and implementation of RtoP to human protection in Cote d’Ivoire. It focused on the 2010 general elections and the civil wars, by examining the complexity of the RtoP doctrine through the prism of Horizontal inequality in Cote d’Ivoire. Adopting a qualitative approach, it was revealed that, though the swift action of the UN, French forces, and regional organizations in Africa, may be justified on the basis of humanitarianism, the interpretation of their actions in Cote d’Ivoire created difficulty in achieving social cohesion in the long run. Hence, Cote d’Ivoire’s social and political history was not adequately taken into consideration in the application of the RtoP. Furthermore, this article argues that the hasty conclusion of the international community without a detailed investigation of the electoral process reveals the bias and complexity in the RtoP approach in Côte d’Ivoire. Regardless of the overarching imperative to reduce human casualty, it is recommended that the pre-conditions of militarism in RtoP must be exhausted and the implementation of RtoP must be context specific.