Dawit, Benyam (PhD)Beyan, Nuruye2019-11-072023-11-082019-11-072023-11-082013-01http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/19989The 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.enLibyaUN ResolutionCiviliansthe Re spon sibility to ProtectThesis