Libya and the State of Intervention

The international response to the crisis in Libya has been remarkably quick
and decisive. Where many other cases of mass atrocity crimes have failed to
generate sufficient and timely political will to protect civilians at risk, the
early response to Libya in 2011 has shown that the United Nations Security
Council is able to give effect to the ‘responsibility to protect’ norm. While
not an implementing party in a legal sense, the Australian government has
taken a forward-leaning diplomatic stance in helping to mobilise broad
support for addressing this crisis. In light of the ongoing political
controversy over armed humanitarian intervention, the Libya case shows
that state-based advocacy for R2P matters, given the on-going need to
bolster the legitimacy of the principle. A discussion of Canberra’s diplomatic
activity is a prelude to an examination of the proceedings of the UN Security
Council and the two key resolutions, the second of which gave effect to the
forcible action. The article then considers three dimensions of the Security
Council’s implementation of the responsibility to protect: the language of
the resolutions and the intriguing absence of a textual reference to the
international community’s responsibility to act; the expansive mandate for
civilian protection in Security Council resolution 1973; and the first
unanimous referral to the International Criminal Court, with novel support
from the United States of America.