Libya, the Responsibility to Protect and the Future of Humanitarian Intervention

A. Hehir, R. Murray, A. Hehir, R. Murray

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137273956
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book critically analyses the 2011 intervention in Libya arguing that the manner in which the intervention was sanctioned, prosecuted and justified has a number of troubling implications for the both the future of humanitarian intervention and international peace and security.

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Introduction: Libya and the Responsibility to Protect

Aidan Hehir

Introduction

Resolution 1973 authorising the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya was passed – on 17 March 2011 – on the third day of the International Studies Association’s (ISA) Annual Convention. The crisis in Libya erupted after the call for papers had closed and thus it was not the subject of any conference papers. Prior to the Resolution being passed, however, Libya and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) did feature prominently in many of the panel discussions. Prior to 17 March, no-one, at least to my knowledge, predicted that the UN Security Council would sanction measures as robust as those contained in Resolution 1973. At the 2012 ISA convention there was a proliferation of papers, panels and roundtables discussing the significance of the intervention; the only thing academics seemed to agree on was that Resolution 1973 was a surprise.

International Relations (IR) academics were certainly not alone in failing to anticipate the dramatic convulsions of February and March 2011, and the intervention in Libya joins a long list of ‘unforeseen events’. In defence of the utility of IR, this oft-proven inability to accurately anticipate events is arguably mitigated by a capacity to retrospectively analyse motivations and catalysts and, most importantly, situate superficially unique case studies in a broader narrative and identify their likely future implications. Yet events such as the intervention in Libya, while mobilizing sudden collective interest, invariably spark division and heated debate. Of course, the contestation that characterizes academia, particularly within IR, is arguably one of its strengths. This book seeks to engage with the ongoing debate and aims to temper the more effusive exhortations that greeted Resolution 1973. We do not purport to offer ‘the definitive’ explanation as to why events in Libya unfolded as they did, but rather to analyse this case study’s significance for R2P and the future of humanitarian intervention more generally. One prediction which is surely incontrovertible is that Libya will join the long list of ‘seminal’ post-Cold War case studies – Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Iraq, Darfur and others – and thus continue to be the subject of debate for many years.

This introductory chapter initially provides a brief overview of events in Libya from February to October 2011 to serve as a basic contextual foundation. I then discuss R2P with a view to identifying its status – legal and political – prior to events in Libya so as to facilitate comparative analysis. In the final section I discuss the structure of the book.

The Arab Spring and Libya

During the 1980s, Colonel Gaddafi’s support for various international terrorist organizations, his direct involvement in murderous attacks against the US, the UK, France and Germany, and his ill-fated attempts to unite the Arab world in a coalition hostile to Western interests, led him to become arguably the most reviled international figure in the West (see Chapter 4). All this changed, however, in the wake of the 2003 invasion of Iraq; evidently fearing a similar fate, Gaddafi disbanded his chemical weapons programme and began a rapid process of reintegrating with the West and the international community more generally (Vandewalle 2006, p. 177). The new strategy produced immediate results and Gaddafi’s ‘rehabilitation’ was regularly cited by proponents of the ‘war on terror’ as evidence of the efficacy of ‘the Bush Doctrine’ (Frum and Pearle 2004: 260). In late 2009 The Guardian published a review of Colonel Gaddafi’s 40-year reign, which concluded:

. . . many things are going his way; Western oil companies and investors are flocking to Tripoli, domestic repression has eased somewhat, and even tourism is developing . . . Gaddafi stills turns heads everywhere he goes, even sharing a photo call with Barack Obama at the G8 Summit in Italy. Shortly after the 40th anniversary celebrations he will address the United Nations in New York as Chair of the African Union. The handsome young Colonel has come a long way. (Black 2009)

At the time the idea that two years later Gaddafi would be deposed, and brutally murdered, during a NATO-led military intervention would have seemed absurd. Indeed, the idea of a region-wide eruption of popular resistance was arguably inconceivable until it actually began. Certain observers were aware of the existence of societal discontent in the Arab World but the scale, duration and consequences of the Arab Spring was not predicted, even by Middle East specialists (Gause 2011).

Prior to the Arab Spring, civil society in the Arab World had often been depicted as undeveloped and incapable of generating momentum for democratic change (Yom 2005; Stephan and Robertson 2003). The ‘Orientalist’ notion that Arabs were pre-disposed to authoritarianism certainly facilitated this conception (Santini 2011). As is now clear, however, underneath the facade of order, tensions were mounting. In Libya, Gaddafi’s failure to create a strong sense of national citizenship amongst the population, coupled with his oppressive policies and remoteness, had created a dangerous disjuncture between the people and the regime. Indeed, with almost unique foresight, in 2006 Dirk Vandewalle warned that, while Gaddafi’s aberrant rule had demonstrated remarkable continuity, his system ‘. . . will face considerable challenges in the future’ (2006: 1). While Libya displayed few overt signs of looming rebellion, people in the Eastern province of Cyrenaica had traditionally been hostile to Gaddafi’s rule and were becoming more publicly vocal; from 2007 protests had been regularly taking place in Benghazi over the massacre at the Abu Salim prison in 1996, albeit without generating much international attention (Becker 2011).

In pursuing the ‘war on terror’ the West supported a number of undemocratic regimes, overlooking their repressive domestic policies to secure their support against al-Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism more generally (Hollis 2012: 93). Libya served as a site for ‘extraordinary rendition’; thus Gaddafi’s new international utility facilitated his domestic repression (Amnesty International 2012; Cobain 2012). His international rehabilitation had diminished his perceived threat to international security, while his new role as international statesman cemented his self-image as the archetypal ‘strongman’ crucial to the maintenance of domestic order. According to a 2010 report by Amnesty International,

Libya’s reintegration into the international community has not been accompanied by significant reforms or long-lasting improvements in the domestic human rights situation . . . members of the EU and the USA . . . are turning a blind eye to the human rights situation in order to further national interests. (2010: 9)

The combination of Gaddafi’s hostile intransigence and the lack of external support led the disaffected within Libya to conclude that they would have to act unilaterally to initiate democratic reform (Hollis 2012: 85–6). As a result, by the end of 2010 Libya was, according to the International Crisis Group, ‘a large pressure cooker ready to explode’ (2011: 2). The uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, driven by the cries Ashsha‘b

(the people want to bring down the regime), served as the direct catalyst and on 15 February mass demonstrations held in Benghazi soon spread throughout the rest of the country.

From the perspective of international observers the sudden eruption of unrest in Libya was certainly a surprise; as Bellamy notes,

None of the world’s various risk-assessment frameworks viewed the country as posing any sort of threat of mass atrocities. Neither was a conflict widely anticipated. For example, CrisisWatch, the earlywarning arm of the International Crisis Group, did not even mention Libya in its report of February 2011, and did not issue a ‘conflict risk alert’ until after the conflict had actually erupted. (2011: 4)

A report by UNICEF in 2010 noted that Libya had experienced a ‘buoyant’ growth rate, high per capita income, high literacy rates and high life expectancy and ranked the country 55th out of 182 states (International Crisis Group 2011: 2). The Minorities at Risk Coalition’s list of 68 states ‘at risk’ did not include Libya (Bellamy and Williams 2011: 838). Internationally Libya was elected uncontested to the UN Human Rights Council in May 2010 and in October the EU and Libya agreed a deal on migration cooperation, to the dismay of many human rights organizations (Human Rights Watch 2011: 567).

Libya’s decent into violence provoked an unusually rapid and robust response from both regional organizations and the UN. On 22 February the Organisation of Islamic Conference criticized Gaddafi’s tactics as having caused, ‘a humanitarian disaster incompatible with Islamic and human values’ (2011) while, more significantly, the Arab League suspended Libya. The following day the African Union’s Peace and Security Council declared it ‘. . . strongly condemns the indiscriminate and excessive use of force and lethal weapons against peaceful protestors’. Condemnatory statements were issued by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect (Bellamy 2011: 2). On 25 February the UN Human Rights Council convened a special session during which they condemned the violence and called for Libya to be suspended. The formal suspension, the first of its kind, was unanimously endorsed by the General Assembly on 1 March.

On 26 February the Security Council invoked its Chapter VII powers and passed Resolution 1970. The Resolution referred the situation to the ICC and imposed an arms embargo, travel ban and asset freeze against the Libyan authorities. Given that significant protests had begun only eleven days earlier, and China and Russia’s historically conservative approach to external involvement in intra-state conflicts, Resolution 1970 was in itself an unusually unified and rapid response (Weiss 2011). Despite this pressure, and appeals from regional organizations, the violence continued. On 17 March the Security Council passed Resolution 1973 which sanctioned the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya. The Resolution condemned ‘the gross and systematic violation of human rights . . . committed by the Libyan authorities’ and warned that these acts may ‘amount to crimes against humanity’. The Security Council sanctioned ‘a ban on all flights in the airspace of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’ and, most significantly, authorized states to ‘take all necessary measures . . . to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack’. The Resolution was passed with ten states voting affirmatively while China, Russia, Germany, Brazil and India abstained.

Military action began on 19 March and was initially led by the US, France and the UK. Despite the concerns of prominent members such as Germany and Poland, NATO agreed to lead the operation on 24 March and on 4 April the US withdrew its forces from direct combat though it continued to play a central role in coordinating the mission (Barry 2011: 5; Daalder and Stavridis 2012). A number of non-NATO members – Sweden, Jordan, Qatar, Morocco and the UAE – also took part in the operation.

NATO had three official aims; police the arms embargo, patrol the no-fly zone and protect civilians (Daalder and Stavridis 2012). The third aim proved by far the most difficult to achieve and it was this which ultimately led to the major controversy surrounding NATO’s prosecution of the campaign. The rebels proved to be unable to defend many of their positions and without NATO support there is little doubt that they would have been overrun (Barry 2011: 9). To prevent this, and the slaughter of civilians that would allegedly follow, NATO’s strategy changed from the initial focus on debilitating the regime’s military bases and heavy weapons to a more expansive set of targets, including, most controversially, regime change (International Crisis Group 2011: i). China, Russia and South Africa publicly criticized what they saw as NATO’s illegitimate interpretation of Resolution 1973 (Barry 2011: 6).

By the end of May, the mission was faltering as the rebel-held cities Misrata and Jebel Nafusa seemed about to fall, prompting France to unilaterally (and illegally) air-drop weapons to the rebels (Barry 2011: 7). On 26 April the African Union called for an end to NATO’s campaign and rejected calls for Gaddafi to step down warning, ‘. . . it should be left to Libyans to choose their leaders and international actors should refrain from taking positions or making pronouncements that can only complicate the search for a solution’ (African Union 2011: 12). To ensure success, NATO stretched the terms of Resolution 1973 beyond breaking point and by August this, combined with defections from Gaddafi’s regime, arms illegally smuggled to rebels from the UAE, Qatar and France, and military support from Sudan (see Chapters 4 and 9) turned the tide (Smith 2011: 75). Operation Unified Protector officially ended on 31 October, 222 days after it had started; Colonel Gaddafi was dead and a National Transitional Council was in power.

The responsibility to protect (R2P)

As detailed in many of the subsequent chapters, Resolution 1973, the intervention itself and the outcome, were greeted with jubilation by many of R2P’s more vocal proponents and championed as evidence of a new disposition amongst the Security Council and the international community more generally. Prior to the intervention R2P had a mixed record, characterized by the widespread recognition of the term but modest actual impact. The concept had undoubtedly made rapid progress in terms of achieving global publicity and a place in the international political lexicon. Two paragraphs of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document referred directly to R2P constituting significant official, if not quite legal, recognition (Stahn 2007). In 2009 the General Assembly held a special three-day debate on R2P and the overwhelming majority of states spoke in favour of the basic principles at the core of R2P (Hehir 2011). The new office of the Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect was established in 2008 and by the end of the decade R2P was officially referred to in a number of Security Council and General Assembly resolutions. Additionally, a number of NGOs, think tanks and research centres were established to specifically focus on promoting R2P, while within academia the concept was the subject of myriad books and articles – inclu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Tables and Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Introduction: Libya and the Responsibility to ProtectAidan Hehir
• 2 Humanitarianism, Responsibility or Rationality? Evaluating Intervention as State StrategyRobert W. Murray
• 3 The Responsibility to Protect as the Apotheosis of Liberal TeleologyAidan Hehir
• 4 ‘My Fears, Alas, Were Not Unfounded’: Africa’s Responses to the Libya Conflict Alex de Waal
• 5 Africa’s Emerging Regional Security Culture and the Intervention in LibyaTheresa Reinold
• 6 The Use – and Misuse – of R2P: The Case of Canada Kim Richard Nossal
• 7 The (D)evolution of a Norm: R2P, the Bosnia Generation and Humanitarian Intervention in LibyaEric A. Heinze and Brent J. Steele
• 8 The UN Security Council on Libya:Legitimation or Dissimulation?Tom Keating
• 9 NATO’s Intervention in Libya:A Humanitarian Success?Alan J. Kuperman
• 10 Conclusion: The Responsibility to Protect after LibyaRobert W. Murray
• Index