THE LEGALITY OF THE NATO BOMBING IN LIBYA

2013 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geir Ulfstein ◽  
Hege Føsund Christiansen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Member States ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Resolution 1973 ◽  
Nato Bombing

AbstractOn 17 March 2011 the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1973 authorizing member states to take forceful measures to protect Libyan civilians. Clearly NATO actions to protect civilians were within the mandate. But the authors claim that operations aiming at overthrowing the Qaddafi regime were illegal use of force. The overstepping of the mandate may have a negative effect on the credibility of the responsibility to protect in future gross human rights violations.

The Status of the “Responsibility to Protect (Rtop)“ Doctrine in Light of the Conflicts in Libya and Syria

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 495
Author(s):  
Petra Perisic
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
World Summit ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The Status ◽  
Resolution 1973 ◽  
The One ◽  
Outcome Document

In 2001 the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty introduced a new doctrine of the “Responsibility to Protect (RtoP)”, which signified an obligation of each state to protect its population from mass atrocities occurring in that state, as well as an obligation on the part of international community to offer such protection if the state in question fails to fulfill its duty. The doctrine of RtoP was subsequently endorsed by states in the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document, though it was formulated more restrictively in comparison to the 2001 Report. In 2011 a conflict broke out in Libya between its ruler Muammar Gaddafi and the protesters against his rule. Government forces were brutal in their attempt to quell the protests and it was not long before different international bodies started to report mass violations of human rights. Surprisingly, the UN Security Council was not deadlocked by veto and passed the Resolution 1973, which invoked the RtoP principle and authorized the use of force. Supporters of RtoP hailed such an application of the principle and believed that the case of Libya was just a beginning of a successful bringing RtoP to life. Such predictions turned out to be premature. Not long after the Libyan conflict, the one in Syria began. Although Syrian people was faced with the same humanitarian disaster as Libyan did, the Security Council could not agree on passing of the resolution which would authorize the use of force to halt human rights violations. Two crises are being analyzed, as well as reasons behind such a disparate reaction of the Security Council in very similar circumstances.

The Slippery Slope of UN Peacekeeping: Offensive Peacekeeping in Congo and Beyond

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Kearney
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Slippery Slope ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Member States ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Self Defence ◽  
The Way

Fed up with the decades-old violence plaguing the DRC, the UN Security Council broke new ground by granting peacekeepers an offensive mandate to pursue rebels rather than waiting to react in self-defence. This transformation in UN military operations alarmed several States, concerned over a perceived loss of sovereignty and a weakening of the principle of non-intervention. To allay these fears, Resolution 2098’s drafters incorporated a provision expressly assuring Member States that offensive peacekeeping tactics in the DRC would not generate precedent for future UN action. However, examining past UN practice and ‘slippery slope’ theory alike reveals that explicit disavowal of precedent cannot guarantee that offensive peacekeeping will not be used as a template for future UN action. In fact, the incorporation of such language may foster the generation of a slippery slope in UN peacekeeping, ultimately paving the way for increased scope of UN intervention in situations of gross human rights violations. The article concludes by proposing a framework for how actors can manipulate slopes to generate or slow precedent for future UN action.

‘Humanitarian Rights’: Bridging the Doctrinal Gap between the Protection of Civilians and the Responsibility to Protect

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Kuwali
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Populations At Risk ◽  
Resolution 1973 ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Military

The right to intervene under Article 4(h) of the African Union (AU) Constitutive Act and the third pillar of responsibility to protect (R2P) provides for the possibility of using military force to protect civilians from mass atrocities. However, both Article 4(h) and R2P do not specify how the military can or should use force to protect civilians. The omission to define how the military should use force to protect populations at risk was brought to the fore by the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1973, through which NATO has been criticized to have overstepped the Security Council mandate. The doctrinal deficit on protecting civilians is worsened by legalistic thinking on the normative separation of human rights and humanitarian law, a division driven by their historical roots. Nonetheless, human rights violations occur during warfare and humanitarian law violations may also be human rights violations. Both spheres of law are complimentary and mutually reinforcing and victims do not distinguish whether they have suffered human rights or humanitarian law violations. What they need is protection. This paper presents a ‘humanitarian rights’ approach as the symbiotic methodology for civilian protection that recognizes the inherent dignity and worth of every human being.

By All Means, Intervene! (The Security Council and the Use of Force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter in Iraq (to protect the Kurds), in Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and Haiti)

1997 ◽  
Vol 66 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 241-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
International Peace ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Taking Action

AbstractIn recent years the UN Security Council has on numerous occasions handled situations involving gross human rights violations. In order to be able to take the action considered necessary the Security Council has applied the notion of ``threat to the peace'' in Article 39 of the UN Charter to situations which do not necessarily constitute such threats. This article examines the cases of use of force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter in Iraq (to protect the Kurds), Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and Haiti. Drawing upon these experiences, the author argues that a reconstruction of the notion of ``threat to the peace'' is needed. It is suggested that gross violations of human rights should be considered as threatening peace by definition and that in particularly serious situations the Security Council is justified in taking action under Chapter VII even if a threat to international peace cannot be determined.

Libya and the Responsibility to Protect: The Exception and the Norm

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex J. Bellamy
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
World Summit ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Resolution 1973 ◽  
High Level

The Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) played an important role in shaping the world's response to actual and threatened atrocities in Libya. Not least, the adoption of Resolution 1973 by the UN Security Council on May 17, 2011, approving a no-fly zone over Libya and calling for “all necessary measures” to protect civilians, reflected a change in the Council's attitude toward the use of force for human protection purposes; and the role played by the UN's new Joint Office on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect points toward the potential for this new capacity to identify threats of mass atrocities and to focus the UN's attention on preventing them. Given the reluctance of both the Security Council and the wider UN membership even to discuss RtoP in the years immediately following the 2005 World Summit—the High-level Plenary Meeting of the 60th Session of the General Assembly that gave birth to RtoP—these two facts suggest that significant progress has been made thanks to the astute stewardship of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is personally committed to the principle. Where it was once a term of art employed by a handful of like-minded countries, activists, and scholars, but regarded with suspicion by much of the rest of the world, RtoP has become a commonly accepted frame of reference for preventing and responding to mass atrocities.

scholarly journals Responsibility To Protect: What For?

2013 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 73-80
Author(s):  
Adelaida Rivera
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
The State ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Resolution 1973 ◽  
The Military

On March 17th 2011, the United Nations Security Council approved the Resolution 1973 which authorized the use of force in Libya in order to protect civilians from the attacks performed by the state armed forces. The military action by NATO in Libya has resulted in diverse and divided opinions. The recourse of Responsibility to protect appeared later as a measure intended to be implemented in the ongoing conflict in Syria, but after two failed resolutions, it became clear that some UN Security Council members are not willing to repeat the Libyan scenario. This text aims to examine some basic notions of the R2P concept, its application in Libya and the implications of the results after the Libyan case on its possible application in Syria. Should the discussed objectives behind the application of Responsibility to Protect in the Libyan case and its results be determinant on the decision whether this doctrine can be applied in Syria? Is it possible that the mistakes committed in Libya, the atrocities now experienced in Syria and the non-response by the international community could mark the end of the whole concept of Responsibility to Protect? These questions are intended to be discussed in this paper.

Humanitarian Intervention

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Caplan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Future Development ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Real Effect ◽  
General Decline ◽  
Humanitarian Crises ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The Way

States – Western ones, at least – have given increased weight to human rights and humanitarian norms as matters of international concern, with the authorization of legally binding enforcement measures to tackle humanitarian crises under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. These concerns were also developed outside the UN Security Council framework, following Tony Blair’s Chicago speech and the contemporaneous NATO action over Kosovo. This gave rise to international commissions and resulted, among other things, in the emergence of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) doctrine. The adoption of this doctrine coincided with a period in which there appeared to be a general decline in mass atrocities. Yet R2P had little real effect – it cannot be shown to have caused the fall in mass atrocities, only to have echoed it. Thus, the promise of R2P and an age of humanitarianism failed to emerge, even if the way was paved for future development.

scholarly journals United Nations Security Council Intervention Towards Gross Human Rights Violation of The Rohingya Ethnicity

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (06) ◽  
pp. 6464-6474
Author(s):  
Nizam Safaraz
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
International Peace ◽  
Humanitarian Interventions ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Human Rights Violation

Abstract             Every human being has the rights to be protected from discrimination by any party, especially the act of gross human rights violations. In order to prevent this, the Security Council has a function to secure international peace and security from threats to international peace. One of the case that is becoming an international concern is the human rights violations on Rohingya by Myanmar Military. In its implementation, the UN Security Council can intervene a country known to violate human rights of its people, however the Security Council's intervention caused a controversy that questioned the validity of the intervention by Security Council. Thus, the purpose of this research is to find out whether the situation in Myanmar is valid for the UN Security Council to carry out humanitarian interventions. Accordingly, this research also analyzes legal measures by the UN Security Council in dealing with human rights violations in Myanmar. Keyword: Human Rights, Humanitarian Intervention, Rohingya, UN Security Council

Responsibility to Protect, Polarity, and Society

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Murray ◽  
Tom Keating
Keyword(s):  
Security Council ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
World Order ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
The Us ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Resolution 1973 ◽  
Other World ◽  
Emerging Powers

Robert Keating and Tom Murray argue that the implementation of R2P has failed despite the rhetorical consensus around R2P over the last decade. They suggest that the behaviour of the US and its NATO allies are partly to blame. These powers ignored the UN Security Council over Kosovo, which other world powers such as the BRICs took as an affront and a challenge. Normative defiance to the liberal world order was the reaction: Russia in particular became less willing to support humanitarian intervention than it had been throughout the 1990s. Similarly, in Libya, NATO refused to conform to the limitations on the intervention imposed by UNSC Resolution 1973. This weakened confidence in the Security Council’s ability to manage interventions, further undermining support for such operations generally. Thus the manner in which Western powers have sought to implement R2P has alienated the emerging powers on whose support successful R2P implementation depends.

The Responsibility to Protect and the Fate of the Rohingya

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-450
Author(s):  
Simon Adams
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
International Law ◽  
Security Council ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
International Community ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Ethnic Cleansing ◽  
Un Security Council

The failure of the international community to adequately respond to patterns of discrimination against the ethnic Rohingya minority in Myanmar (Burma) eventually led to a genocide. The so-called “clearance operations” launched by Myanmar’s military in August 2017 tested the resilience of the international community’s commitment to defending human rights and upholding its Responsibility to Protect (R2P) populations from genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Two years later the UN Security Council has still not adopted a single resolution to name the crime committed against the Rohingya, or to hold the perpetrators accountable. Nevertheless, Rohingya survivors and international civil society have continued to campaign for justice under international law, and to advocate for targeted sanctions to be imposed on those responsible for atrocities. Faced with an inert Security Council, some UN member states have adopted inventive diplomatic measures to uphold their responsibility to protect.

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