The United Nations' Responsibility to Protect Civilians from Massive Human Rights Violations in Light of the Intervention in the Libyan Crisis in 2011
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Date
2013-01
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The international community was criticized when it decided to int ervene, as in Somalia, Bosnia
and Ko sovo, and when it did not interven e as in Rwanda. It wa s aga in st thi s background th at
Kofi Annan argued, in September 1999 , in the defense of the individual soverei gnty over state
sove reignty. He asked, ' if humanitari an inter vention i s an una cceptab le attac k on sovereignty,
how can we respond to cases as Rwanda or Srebrenica?' In this sense, with th e recovery of
Francis Deng's 1996 "sovereignty as re spons ibility" concept, it wou ld be po ss ible to abrogate
the ca tego rical imp erative of traditional sovereignty; allowing the international community to
intervene when the state fai ls in it s responsibility to protect it s people against genocide, ethnic
clea ns in g, crimes of war and again st humanity.
The study looks at the creation, development and eventual adoption of the ' responsibility to
protect' (R2P) norm, from an idea promulgated in the 1990s to the development of the norm,
and to the eventual adoption of a heavil y restricted yet poignant principle at the 2005 World
Summit. There is considerable debate over the statu s and scope of the Re sp on sibility to
Protect. On balance, mo st observe rs a nd states believe that it rema ins a political cOlmni tment
and has not yet ac quired legal force . The purpose of this stu dy is to criticall y examin e the UN's
responsibility to protect civilians in light of the intervention in th e 20 II Libyan crisi s. The
re sponsibility to protect has been central in the d iscuss ion of how to dea l with th e Arab sp ring
re vo lts that gave rise to c ivil war in Libya. In Libya, with the help of an UN auth orized NATO
intervention, th e Gaddafi authoritarian regim e ended and the fo nner rebel forces are no w
leading the transitional pro cess. Taking in to account the events in Libya, many ha ve
que stioned whether th e concept ofR2P was used not only to protect civi li ans, but a lso to fulfill
a des ire, from the beginning of the mis sion, for regime change.
However, th e study a rgu ed th at it was very difficult to enforce the very intents and objectives
of Re so lution 1973, because it was obvio us enough that Gad dafi was prepared to con tinue to
slaugh ter his people in a civil war to retain power. Thu s, even if some argue d that the NATO
interven tion in Libya acted beyond Resolution 1973, neverthele ss, the stud y s trongly argued
that the intervening forces have indeed stopped Gaddafi from marching on Benghazi and saved
thousands of li ves.
Keywords: Lib ya, UN Reso lu tion, C ivilians, th e Re spon sibility to Protect.
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Keywords
Libya, UN Resolution, Civilians, the Re spon sibility to Protect