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Abstract

The United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) intervention in Libya 2011 was divisive within the international community and it marked the first time that the UNSC authorised the use of force against an acting government to protect civilians (Brockmeier, 2015). The case study of the 2011 intervention in Libya is therefore a key area of research when it comes to assessing the response of the UNSC and the Responsibility to Protect doctrine (R2P) in terms of its legitimacy and efficacy. This research project seeks to examine the extent to which the R2P doctrine influenced the policy decisions made by the UNSC and its individual members. Furthermore, this project also seeks to answer the question of whether the UNSC members acted out of necessity to protect civilians in Libya as stipulated by the doctrine, or whether certain states were mainly motivated by self-interest factors. The influence of the R2P doctrine will be compared to other factors, such as border security, access to oil and sovereignty. This project seeks to argue that multiple members of the UNSC acted under the guise of the R2P doctrine to enact regime change and further their country’s own self-interests, which were not the stated aims of the intervention or the R2P doctrine.

The R2P doctrine as a concept came about in response to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, this atrocity caused the international community to consider the legitimacy and justification behind intervention in these circumstances. The doctrine, adopted at the 2005 World Summit, declares that all states have a responsibility to protect their citizens from acts of war, genocide and ethnic cleansing and that the international community has a duty to intervene if it believes that a state is failing to protect its citizens (Bellamy, 2009). The R2P doctrine was highly critiqued as it first emerged due to its potential to interfere with state sovereignty and security (Silander, 2013). As will be discussed later, sovereignty is a key point of debate surrounding R2P and states such as Russia place different importance on this concept than other states such as the UK and France. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) played a significant role in authorising and organising the collective responses from member states.

The UNSC is a global organisation where members vote on issues of national importance. Described by Dreher, Gould et al (2014, Pg 1) as ‘The foremost international body responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security’, the UNSC holds great power within the international community and it is made up of 15 members, 10 non-permanent and 5 permanent. The 10 non-permanent members are elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms (Pay, Potolski, 2022). There are 5 permanent members of the UNSC: UK, USA, France, Russia and China. These five members were the original nuclear powers and have ‘veto’ power, allowing them to overrule the decisions made by the non-permanent members (Pay, Potolski, 2022) and so were highly influential in determining the Council’s response to the Libyan crisis and the ensuing intervention. It also oversaw the application of the R2P doctrine for the first time in a real-world setting. At the time, the R2P doctrine was a relatively new concept within the international community, and it had not yet been put into practical use within the context of the UNSC. The reaction of the UNSC and its application of the R2P doctrine has raised clear concerns over the current effectiveness and legitimacy of humanitarian intervention as well as the R2P doctrine itself (Wamulume, Taraj, et al, 2022). The success of the intervention is highly debated, some scholars argue that this intervention was a great achievement for R2P while others saw it as the beginning of the end for the doctrine (Brockmeier, 2015). These differing views of the doctrine within the UNSC itself will be explored in Chapter Two.

The 2011 intervention and the following application of the R2P doctrine brought into sharp focus the disagreements between the members of the UNSC over how to apply the doctrine in this case.

Members such as Russia and China had vastly different interpretations of the doctrine than states such as the UK and France. This has led to great debate within the international community over how and when to apply it in different circumstances (Silander, 2013). The debate around international intervention is mainly centred around whether it is justified or legitimate to potentially violate a state’s sovereignty and act against the will of an acting government (Dembrinski, Reinold, 2011). Sovereignty is a highly central concept within international relations and, as will be explored further on, is one of main points of debate regarding R2P.

In terms of structure, this project will explore the following areas to answer the research question. The first chapter will explore the general context around Libya and its political climate and will then go on to analyse how this impacted the Arab Spring uprisings. Chapter Two will then analyse the R2P doctrine in relation to its application in Libya. It will explore how the UNSC reacted as a whole and then explore further how individual members responded and the potential factors behind their decisions. Chapter Three will then examine the impact of other potential factors such as access to oil and the diplomatic relationships between the West and Libya. Chapter Four will discuss further potential factors, focusing on sovereignty and Russia and China’s views on intervention, allowing for an overall assessment of the importance of these issues in relation to the intervention in Libya. 

Course: International Relations and Languages - BA (Hons) - C1727

Date Deposited: 2023-07-25

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14166.html