A study of interventionism after the cold war : the European intervention in Libya

Abstract

The 2011 intervention in Libya is particular in the sense that it is considered an armed humanitarian intervention and an application of the new concept of responsibility to protect European states were at the origin of the impetus for intervention, and composed the majority of the coalition that led the operations in Libya. This intervention also inherited from the example of past interventions: a failed intervention in Somalia m 1992, a genocide in Rwanda in 1994, an absence of UN Security Council authorization and an abuse of the humanitarian argument for the Afghanistan and Iraq interventions in 2001 and 2003 All had an influence on the decision to intervene. The coalition benefitted from an authorization of the Security Council, but critics have arisen on whether NATO abused the mandate and sought to change the regime in power instead of protecting the populations. Moreover, whether authorizing the use of force for the protection of foreign populations is legitimate or legal is still a controversial issue. In fact, more generally, one can wonder if the intervention in Libya eventually protected the populations or protracted a civil war and caused more death than a non-intervention would have. The current situation in Libya, the lack of an effective post-conflict reconstruction along with the supposed interests and motives of the coalition countries are undermining ex post the legitimacy of intervention. Should the international community intervene in foreign states internal affairs when the life of populations is at stake? Concepts of sovereignty and non-intervention in the internal affairs of a state expressed in the UN Charter seem to be in contradiction with the respect of human rights and the protection of populations, expressed m the same Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Moreover, the systematic imposition of a democratic system of governance on populations without any consideration of their history or traditional and cultural particularities is not a guarantee of human rights protection and regional stability.