Global Issues: Humanitarian Intervention: R2P and Libya

There is an article in the FT by Gareth Evans entitled: No-fly zone will help stop Gaddafi’s carnage Evans argues that enforcing a no-fly zone is necessary to stop mass killings in Libya and that the ‘Right to protect’ must be invoked to justify forcibly piercing Libya’s sovereinty to do so. However, as attractive as the argument may sound - it must be born in mind that the ‘golden age’ of humanitarian intervenion in the 1990s has gone and that in the words of Harriet Martin [Author of Kings of Peace - Pawns of War] ‘Humanitarian Intervention is dead - and we killed it’. The UN mechanisms were broken over the 2003 Iraq War and it might cynically be argued that the 2005 World Summit which promulgated the ‘RTP’ was doing so to assuage UN inaction over Rwanda and was a case of closing the gate after the horse had bolted. So interesting article which touches on ‘humanitarian intervention’ but approach with caution!

Evans asserts:“State sovereignty is not a licence to kill. No state can abdicate the responsibility to protect its people from crimes against humanity, let alone justify perpetrating such crimes itself. When it manifestly fails in that protection, it is the responsibility of the international community to provide it, if necessary – should peaceful means be inadequate – by taking timely and decisive collective action through the United Nations Security Council. This is the “responsibility to protect” principle embraced unanimously by the General Assembly in 2005. There is no clearer case for its application than the dire situation unfolding in Libya. Muammer Gaddafi’s forces, on the ground and from the sky, have already massacred perhaps more than a thousand of his own people, protesting (initially peacefully) against the excesses of his regime. A bigger bloodbath seems inescapable if he does not step down. The need for timely and decisive action is overwhelming.”

UPDATE:Mmmm…just found an even better article We must stand ready to intervene in Libya writes Sir RichardDalton, former UK Ambassador to Libya, in the Telegraph. He gives a very realistic assessment of the merits of armed humanitarian intervention in Libya. He very useful exerpt which sums the situation vis a vis humanitarian intervention is: The guiding document is General Assembly resolution 60/1 of September 2005. This lays down that action may be taken through the United Nations Security Council if peaceful means have failed and national authorities are failing to protect their population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

These conditions have been fulfilled in respect of crimes against humanity, given the attacks on Libyans who have risen against their government. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights thinks so.

There is a UN-charter based inhibition against intervention in the internal affairs of states. Humanitarian intervention is not yet firmly rooted as a concept or in practice. UN members are selective in the crises they wish address. They often disregard situations that are objectively worse than the Libyan one now. That can be because there is a powerful patron that blocks action that might be aimed at another state. Or it can be because the problem is simply too big for potential interveners to take on.