The Impact of the Libya Intervention Debates on Norms of Protection

In the days leading up to 17 March, two questions were at stake in the debates on the authorisation of force in Libya. Had all possible political and diplomatic means been exhausted, and did force therefore represent a last-resort measure to protect civilians in Libya? What degree of force was necessary to complete this task? Both debates continued after the intervention started.

During the negotiations, proponents of the use of force argued that all other measures had evidently failed to stop Muammar Gaddafi and that a massacre in Benghazi was imminent.²⁵

25. Sarah Brockmeier, “Germany and the Intervention in Libya”, Survival Global Politics and Strategy, Vol. 55, No. 6 (2013), pp. 63–90, p. 75.View all notes

This group of states was led by the United States, which only decided late on the night of 15 March to support an intervention in Libya.²⁶

26. Ibid., pp. 70–71; Sarah Brockmeier, Gerrit Kurtz and Philipp Rotmann, “Schutz und Verantwortung: Über die US-Außenpolitik zur Verhinderung von Gräueltaten” (Berlin: Heinrich Boell Foundation, 2013), pp. 102–103.View all notes

The American switch in positions was closely related to the decision to push for a resolution that authorised more than the no-fly zone that had previously been proposed by the French and the British and discussed in the Security Council.²⁷

27. Brockmeier, “Germany and the Intervention in Libya”, op. cit.; Colum Lynch, “Amb. Rice: Leading from Behind? That's ‘Whacked’”, Foreign Policy, 31 October 2011, available: <http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/10/31/amb_rice_leading_from_behind_that_s_whacked> (accessed 5 December 2012).View all notes

Accordingly, the US, supported by France and Britain,²⁸

28. It is important to know, though, that Britain and France were themselves sceptical at first of the feasibility of asking for more than a no-fly zone as they feared a Russian veto. See Brockmeier, “Germany and the Intervention in Libya”, op. cit., p. 70.View all notes

argued in the council that a no-fly zone would not be effective at protecting civilians in Benghazi who were threatened by tanks on the ground. The journalist Colum Lynch quoted then US Ambassador Susan Rice as referring to a “naked no-fly zone” during a Security Council meeting.²⁹

29. Lynch, op. cit.View all notes

By emphasising the urgency of the situation, the US, France and the United Kingdom put pressure on other states in the council to support the resolution. Scholars Adler-Nissen and Pouliot cite an elected member on the council recalling that “the information flowing in, and the discussions among diplomats outside the Council, often took the following form: ‘Do you want to wake up tomorrow and there is no Benghazi?’”³⁰

30. Rebecca Adler-Nissen and Vincent Pouliot, “Power in Practice: Nogotiating the International Intervention in Libya”, European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 20, No. 4 (2014), pp. 1–23, p. 13.View all notes

The US also made a point of urgency by warning of “another Srebrenica” during the negotiations.³¹

31. Ibid., p. 13.View all notes

Others—including Brazil, India, South Africa, Russia, China, Portugal and Germany—argued that what was primarily needed were serious negotiation efforts for a ceasefire. According to a senior Brazilian diplomat at the UN at the time, these countries' demands were reflected in paragraph 2 of the resolution, which emphasised the “need to intensify efforts to find a solution to the crisis”.³²

32. UN Security Council, “Resolution 1973”, op. cit., para. 2.View all notes

The paragraph also referred to the efforts of the secretary-general's special envoy to Libya and of the African Union to “[facilitate] dialogue to lead to the political reforms necessary to find a peaceful and sustainable solution”.³³

33. Ibid.; Adler-Nissen and Pouliot, “Power in Practice”, op. cit.View all notes

These countries were also not convinced that the situation in Libya required the extensive authorisation of the use of force proposed by the US. At least one country that ultimately abstained—Brazil—might have voted “yes” on the resolution, had it only authorised a no-fly zone.³⁴

34. Interview with senior Brazilian diplomat, New York, 20 May 2014.View all notes

When Brazil and India abstained, they said they doubted that such an open-ended and large-scale use of force was necessary and appropriate at that stage.³⁵

35. See statements by Brazil and India in their explanations of vote after the passage of Resolution 1973: UN Security Council, “6498th Meeting, UN doc. S/PV.6498”, 17 March (New York: United Nations, 2011).View all notes

At the same time, the countries that argued for a greater focus on negotiations and opposed large-scale authorisation of force were also affected by the threat to civilians in Benghazi. A senior Brazilian diplomat at the time remembered the warnings from France and the US of “another Rwanda” and the sense that immediate action had to be taken.³⁶

36. Interview with a senior Brazilian diplomat, 5 August 2014.View all notes

Russia and China, which could have vetoed and prevented the resolution, abstained. There were many other reasons for their abstentions, which are discussed in detail elsewhere³⁷

37. Compare, e.g., Samuel Charap, “Russia, Syria and the Doctrine of Intervention”, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, Vol. 55, No. 1 (February/March 2013), pp. 35–41; Marcin Kaczmarski, “Russia on the Military Intervention in Libya”, Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich, 23 March 2011; Mu Ren, “China's Non-intervention Policy in UNSC Sanctions in the 21st Century: The Cases of Libya, North Korea, and Zimbabwe”, Ritsumeikan International Affairs, Vol. 12 (2014), pp. 101–134.View all notes

and included the backing of regional organisations for a no-fly zone and few geopolitical interests in Libya. Yet the abstentions by Russia, China, India and Brazil³⁸

38. For a detailed analysis on the abstention of Germany, see Brockmeier, “Germany and the Intervention in Libya”, op. cit.View all notes

ultimately reflected their ambiguous feelings regarding the resolution. They did not vote “yes”, in part because they were not convinced that all other measures short of a large-scale authorisation of force had been tried, and they doubted that the large-scale authorisation of the use of force as included in paragraph 4 of the resolution was necessary. At the same time, they did not vote “no”, and the resolution passed partly because of the fear that inaction—i.e., passing no resolution—might lead to a massacre in Benghazi. The Russian president at the time, Dmitry Medvedev, even explicitly stated in a press conference on 21 March 2011 that Russia made the decision to abstain “consciously in the aim of preventing an escalation of violence” and emphasised that “everything that is happening in Libya is a result of the Libyan leadership's absolutely intolerable behavior and the crimes that they have committed against their own people”.³⁹

39. The Mendeleyev Journal, “Why Russia Voted to Abstain on Libya ‘No-Fly' Resolution (Excerpts from English Translation of Press Conference by President Medvedev)”, 21 March 2011. See also Yun Sun, “China's Acquiescence on UNSCR 1973: No Big Deal”, PacNet: Pacific Forum CSIS, 31 March 2011, available: <http://csis.org/files/publication/pac1120.pdf> (accessed 10 November 2014).View all notes

Even if some doubts remained, the states in the Security Council on 17 March 2011 felt that the criterion of last resort was sufficiently fulfilled in order for Resolution 1973 to pass.

Given the controversy that had already accompanied the passage of Resolution 1973, it is not surprising that almost immediately after its passage, the international community disagreed on the right course of action to implement it. After just a few days of the intervention, before NATO had even taken over, the initial military objective of the use of force in Libya had been achieved: civilians in Benghazi were no longer under immediate threat by regime forces.⁴⁰

40. Christopher Chivvis, Toppling Qaddafi: Libya and the Limits of Liberal Intervention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 174.View all notes

The central questions that emerged on 19 March, soon after the start of the intervention, were whether the intervention should stop before Gaddafi had relinquished power, and accordingly, whether regime change in Libya could constitute the goal of an intervention that was justified by the need to protect civilians. In the weeks following the start of protests in Libya, but even before a military intervention had been discussed, the leading NATO countries argued that Gaddafi, by using violence against his citizens, had lost legitimacy to rule the country.⁴¹

41. Cf. US statement during debate after Resolution 1970: UN Security Council, “Meeting Records, 6491st Meeting,” op. cit.View all notes

This demand was supported by a number of countries, including those that did not support the use of force in Libya, such as Germany. On 11 March 2011, the European Union stated in a common communiqué that “Colonel Kadhafi must relinquish power immediately”, arguing that his “regime has lost all legitimacy and is no longer an interlocutor for the EU”.⁴²

42. European Council, “Declaration: Extraordinary European Council, EU doc. EUCO 7/1/11 Rev”, 11 March (Brussels: European Council), para. 7.View all notes

After the start of the intervention, however, the question became whether this removal of Gaddafi from power should be achieved by military force.

The ensuing debate pitched an interventionist coalition—led by the US, France and the UK—against a wide array of actors that opposed regime change in Libya. The latter argued on two interrelated levels against regime change. First, they opposed the extent of force that was used by NATO to implement its goal of ending the Gaddafi regime. Second, they were appalled by what they saw as the abuse of the humanitarian argument of protecting civilians for the political goal of regime change.

As had already become clear during the negotiations on Resolution 1973, some members of the Security Council—including Brazil, India and South Africa—favoured more limited military operations to be used in combination with diplomatic efforts to reach a negotiated settlement between the parties. In their view, military force was to be used only to protect civilians, while other policy instruments would be given time to work on the resolution of the dispute.⁴³

43. Harry Verhoeven, C.S.R. Murthy and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, “‘Our Identity Is Our Currency': South Africa, the Responsibility to Protect and the Logic of African Intervention”, Conflict, Security & Development, Vol. 14, No. 4 (2014), pp. 509–534, p. 525; Madhan Mohan Jaganathan and Gerrit Kurtz, “Singing the Tune of Sovereignty? India and the Responsibility to Protect”, Conflict, Security & Development, Vol. 14, No. 4 (2014), p. 474.View all notes

Instead of using a gradual approach—i.e., halting the intervention after the immediate threat to civilians in Benghazi no longer existed and refocusing on negotiations—the intervening coalition continued its air operations and provided direct military support to the rebels.⁴⁴

44. E.g., Gareth Evans, Ramesh Thakur and Robert A. Pape, “Correspondence: Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect”, International Security, Vol. 37, No. 4 (2013), pp. 199–214; Simon Adams, “Libya and the Responsibility to Protect” (New York: Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, 2012), p. 9; Interview with senior Brazilian diplomat, 5 August 2014. View all notes

Most controversially, as outlined above, the countries leading NATO's intervention dismissed outright efforts by the African Union to negotiate a ceasefire between the Gaddafi government and the rebel forces at several stages during the intervention. The alliance did not use its influence on the National Transitional Council run by the rebels to press them to negotiate with the Gaddafi regime.⁴⁵

45. de Waal, op. cit.View all notes

While it is impossible to prove in retrospect whether these efforts—mostly pushed by the African Union—had any chance of success, the fact that NATO did not even allow for an attempt frustrated not only African leaders.⁴⁶

46. Ibid.View all notes

A senior Brazilian diplomat, for example, recalled that the suggestion to interrupt the military operation and to pursue political negotiations was opposed by the countries leading the NATO intervention, with the argument that the military operation should not be micromanaged—not an argument that truly addressed the proposed termination of the operation.⁴⁷

47. Interview with senior Brazilian diplomat, 5 August 2014.View all notes

Therefore, opponents of extensive use of force in Libya—such as Brazil and India—repeatedly emphasised their belief during Security Council debates that the use of force should be a measure of last resort.⁴⁸

48. Compare, e.g., statements by India and Brazil in the Security Council during the 10 May 2011 thematic debate on the protection of civilians. UN Security Council, “6531st Meeting, UN Doc. S/PV.6531”, 10 May (New York: United Nations, 2011).View all notes

Their view was supported by many analysts and advocates of R2P, who argued from a human security perspective, usually focusing on individuals as subjects for protection rather than states.⁴⁹

49. Evans, Thakur and Pape, op. cit.View all notes

“NATO's choice to rely on military means alone”, argued Benner, for example, “at the very least reveals a lack of creativity in terms of combining the available tools from targeted sanctions to political mediation in sequence or even in parallel with targeted military efforts”.⁵⁰

50. Thorsten Benner, “NATO's Libya Mission Could Cause a Political Backlash”, Deutsche Welle, 8 September 2011, available: <http://www.dw.de/natos-libya-mission-could-cause-a-political-backlash/a-15371687-1> (accessed 14 January 2013).View all notes

The opponents of regime change argued that NATO, by aiming at regime change and not seriously supporting negotiations after the threat to Benghazi was stopped, was acting contrary to the goal of protecting civilians. India, South Africa and Brazil in particular argued that the NATO-led intervention in Libya did not employ measures proportional to the threats posed to the civilians, as it directly targeted Gaddafi's command facilities and infrastructure that were far removed from the immediate battlefield. They were appalled when France delivered arms to the rebel forces and when some NATO members began deploying special forces to advise them.⁵¹

51. Alan J. Kuperman, “NATO's Intervention in Libya: A Humanitarian Success?”, in Hehir and Murray, op. cit., pp. 191–221; Micah Zenko, “The Slippery Slope of US Intervention”, Foreign Policy, 11 August 2014, available: <http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/11/the_slippery_slope_of_us_intervention_iraq_islamic_state_humanitarian_intervention> (accessed 15 August 2014).View all notes

They pointed to the risks that the intervention and the prolonged conflict posed for Libyan civilians.⁵²

52. Cody, op. cit.; de Waal, op. cit.View all notes

Relatedly, they argued that taking sides so decisively with the rebel forces did not further the aim of ending the conflict swiftly.⁵³

53. Adler-Nissen and Pouliot, op. cit., p. 20.View all notes

Much later, in January 2014, the UN Human Rights Council published a report by a commission of inquiry into “all violations of international human rights law in Libya”.⁵⁴

54. Human Rights Council, “Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Libya, UN doc. A/HRC/19/68” (Geneva: United Nations, 2014).View all notes

It found that NATO had conducted a “highly precise campaign with a demonstrable determination to avoid civilian casualties”⁵⁵

55. Ibid., p. 2.View all notes

and put the number of civilians killed by NATO airstrikes at 60, far below previously alleged figures.⁵⁶

56. Ibid., p. 16.View all notes

The report also concluded that not only had the Gaddafi regime committed crimes against humanity and war crimes, but the rebel forces supported by NATO had also committed war crimes and “breaches of international human rights law”. The report thereby disproved the allegations of massive civilian casualties of NATO airstrikes put forward by some of the opponents of the intervention, but simultaneously provided evidence for their claim that the rebel forces so decisively supported by NATO also put civilians at risk.

The second aspect of the regime change debates focused on the question of whether Resolution 1973 was abused by the NATO coalition. Here, the views of the postcolonial states that opposed regime change as a matter of principle aligned with those arguing with reference to human security principles. At the centre of the outrage of BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) on the Security Council was the perceived abuse of humanitarian arguments for the political agenda of removing Gaddafi from power.⁵⁷

57. UN Security Council, “6650th Meeting, UN doc. S/PV.665”, 9 November (New York: United Nations, 2011).View all notes

By doing so, as these states and civil society actors argued, the countries leading the NATO coalition undermined and endangered the protection agenda. South Africa explicitly made the point that stretching the mandate of Resolution 1973 would “undermine the gains made in this discourse [on the protection of civilians] and provide ammunition to those who have always been skeptical of the concept”.⁵⁸

58. Compare South Africa's statement at the 10 May 2011 debate on protection of civilians: UN Security Council, “6531st Meeting”, op. cit.View all notes

UN officials and a variety of R2P proponents in policymaking and academia who are usually informed by a human security perspective also made this argument. Then UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos, for example, highlighted “concerns in terms of the potential undermining of the protection of civilians agenda”.⁵⁹

59. Ibid., p. 4.View all notes

The drafters of the original report proposing a responsibility to protect, Gareth Evans and Ramesh Thakur, are just two prominent examples of R2P proponents and academics who found that NATO had overstepped its mandate and who argued that regime change should not be part of a military intervention in the framework of R2P.⁶⁰

60. Evans, Thakur and Pape, op. cit.; Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock, “A Reflection on Responsibility: What Does Syria Mean for R2P?”, Diplomat Magazine, 4 October 2012, available: <http://diplomatonline.com/mag/2012/10/a-reflection-on-responsibility-what-does-syria-mean-for-r2p/> (accessed 14 August 2014); James Pattison, “The Ethics of Humanitarian Intervention in Libya”, Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 25, No. 3 (2011), pp. 271–277, p. 272; Rieff, op. cit.; Jennifer Welsh, “What a Difference a Year Makes”, Open Canada, 5 February 2012, available: <http://opencanada.org/features/syria-un/> (accessed 14 August 2014).View all notes

Towards the end of the intervention, Edward Luck, then special advisor to the secretary-general for the responsibility to protect, tried to argue along a line that the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty had already agreed on in its report, distinguishing between regime change as an objective and as a means:⁶¹

61. International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2001), p. 35.View all notes

“I should say that it isn't the goal of the responsibility to protect to change regimes. The goal is to protect populations. It may be in some cases that the only way to protect populations is to change the regime, but that certainly is not the goal of the R2P per se”.⁶²

62. Bernard Gwertzman, “Will Syria Follow Libya? Interview with Edward C. Luck, Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General”, Council on Foreign Relations, 1 September 2011, available: <http://www.cfr.org/syria/syria-follow-libya/p25745>.View all notes

Yet France, the UK and the US—the states most vocal in arguing that the intervention should only stop with the removal of Gaddafi from power—did not explicitly make the case that regime change by force was a means of implementing the protection of civilians mandate in Libya. In contrast, throughout the intervention they tried to uphold a distinction between their stated political aim of Gaddafi leaving power and their stated military goal of protecting civilians—while at the same time continuing the intervention until the rebel forces took over Tripoli and Gaddafi had been defeated.

Less than a month after the start of the intervention, US President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and UK Prime Minister David Cameron made this point in a joint op-ed: “Our duty and our mandate under UN Security Council Resolution 1973 is to protect civilians, and we are doing that. It is not to remove Qaddafi by force. But it is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Qaddafi in power”.⁶³

63. Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, “Libya's Pathway to Peace”, The International Herald Tribune, 15 April 2011, available: <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/opinion/15iht-edlibya15.html> (accessed 7 December 2012).View all notes

When a Labour MP asked British Foreign Minister William Hague on 3 May 2011 whether he thought that “at some point there will have to be a political solution led by the Arab League and the African Union”, Hague argued that only a regime without Gaddafi would guarantee the safety of Libyan civilians.⁶⁴

64. House of Commons UK Parliament, “Oral Answers to Questions, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, The Secretary of State Was Asked–”, Tuesday, 3 May 2011, available: <http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm110503/debtext/110503-0001.htm> (accessed 14 August 2014).View all notes

When the rebel forces took over Tripoli in August 2011 and most states recognised the rebels' National Transitional Council as the Libyan government, allied leaders argued that “as long as Qaddafi was still at large, the possibility of further attacks on civilians was still a cause for concern”.⁶⁵

65. Chivvis, op. cit., p. 165. In November 2011, the US argued in the Security Council that NATO's operation was in line with Resolution 1973 and its conduct “necessary and appropriate”, given that Gaddafi's forces “continued to unleash brutal attacks on civilians and civilian populated areas and hindered the delivery of humanitarian assistance”. In accordance with Resolution 1973, the US argued that “NATO and its partners protected civilians for as long as necessary”.View all notes

These indirect comments are the closest that NATO leaders came to making an explicit case that regime change was a necessary means of protecting civilians in Libya. Unlike some international lawyers and academics who argued that regime change could in fact be a tool that could legitimately be included in “all necessary measures to protect civilians”,⁶⁶

66. Mehrdad Payandeh, “The United Nations, Military Intervention and Regime Change in Libya”, Virginia Journal of International Law, Vol. 52, No. 2 (2011), p. 389; Hugh Breakey, “The Responsibility to Protect: Game Change and Regime Change”, in Charles Sampford, Angus Francis and Vesselin Popovski (eds.), Norms of Protection: Responsibility to Protect, Protection of Civilians and Their Interaction (Geneva: United Nations University, 2012), p. 29; Lars Brozus, “Improving Mass Atrocities Prevention: Guidelines for Effective and Legitimate Implementation of the Responsibility to Protect”, SWP Comments, December 2012, available: <http://www.swp-berlin.org/fileadmin/contents/products/comments/2012C38_bzs.pdf> (accessed 15 January 2013); Nesam McMillan and David Mickler, “From Sudan to Syria: Locating ‘Regime Change’ in R2P and the ICC”, Global Responsibility to Protect, Vol. 5, No. 3 (2013), pp. 283–316.View all notes

the NATO coalition never explicitly argued that regime change should be a part of implementing the responsibility to protect in this or other cases. Some senior politicians in NATO countries, such as the French minister of defence, were even quoted early in the intervention as saying that they believed the resolution did not cover regime change.⁶⁷

67. BBC News, “Libya Conflict: NATO Summit Fails to Secure New Planes”, 15 April 2011, available: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13096829> (accessed 13 October 2014).View all notes

Yet in practice they used the resolution that was authorised to protect civilians and extended the intervention to such an extent that it included the change of the government by military force—the very definition of regime change. As Eyal points out, the fact that the intervention was stopped right after the death of Gaddafi, despite a massive security vacuum and continued violence in other parts of the country that still threatened civilians, was further proof for the opponents of NATO's actions that the alliance was prioritising regime change over humanitarian goals.⁶⁸

68. Jonathan Eyal, “The Responsibility to Protect: A Chance Missed”, in Adrian Johnson and Saqeb Mueen (eds.), Short War, Long Shadow—The Political and Military Legacies of the 2011 Libya Campaign (London: Royal United Services Institute for Defence, 2012), pp. 53–62.View all notes

At the same time, the leading NATO countries did not fully engage in the debate on the extent of the force used, nor with the accusation that they had abused the resolution for a different purpose. NATO pointed to the operational guidelines that stipulated a standard of “zero expectation” of civilian casualties⁶⁹

69. Human Rights Council, “Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Libya”, op. cit., p. 16.View all notes

and argued that its operations were conducted in a manner proportional to the goal of protecting civilians in Libya. France, the UK and the US argued in the council that the precise military planning and implementation of the intervention was up to the mandate-taker of the resolution, i.e. NATO, and that once military operations start, one cannot micromanage them. They also defended themselves against the accusation of abuse by saying that it had been clearly spelled out during the negotiations that the military operation would include not only a no-fly zone but also targeted airstrikes.⁷⁰

70. E.g., British Ambassador House of Commons Defence Committee, Operations in Libya, Vol. 1, HC 950 (London: The Stationery Office, 25 January 2012), question 78 onwards, question 86.View all notes

Yet neither NATO nor the political leaders of its member states engaged with the main criticism of the intervention outlined above—namely, that it took sides in a civil war and did not seriously pursue political negotiations.

The passage and implementation of Resolution 1973 inspired a significant growth in debate on the responsibility to protect. That Resolution 1973 was possible demonstrated that under specific circumstances, the use of force to protect civilians against the will of a state was something that member states could agree upon. The passage of the resolution and the ensuing controversies regarding its implementation not only inspired a sharp increase in interest from the academic world,⁸²

82. A search for the term “responsibility to protect” on Google Scholar, for example, shows a 40% increase in articles between 2010 and 2013.View all notes

but also significantly increased the number of states that engaged in discussions on the concept. Governments and politicians that previously had barely known about the idea were now starting to discuss R2P not only at the UN but also at home—in think tanks, parliaments and newspapers, and with their domestic publics.⁸³

83. A good example of this development is the discussion in Germany, cf. Sarah Brockmeier, Gerrit Kurtz and Julian Junk, “Emerging Norm and Rhetorical Tool: Europe and a Responsibility to Protect”, Conflict, Security & Development, Vol. 14, No. 4 (2014), pp. 429–460.View all notes

An exchange on the “structural dilemmas” of R2P between Roland Paris, professor at the University of Ottowa, and a series of R2P experts and scholars in the journal International Peacekeeping provides a good example of the increased depth in the academic debates on the principle after the Libya intervention. Taking the course of the debates on the Libya intervention as an example, Paris points to five structural “problems” inherent in the logic of a military intervention to protect civilians. These include several issues that have since been important in debating the impact and assessment of the Libya intervention, including that these interventions will always be based on more than just altruistic motives (“mixed motives”) and the difficulty of proving that an atrocity that did not happen could have happened without the intervention (the “counterfactual problem”).⁸⁴

84. David Mutimer, “Whose Problems Are These Anyway? A Response to Roland Paris”, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 22, No. 1 (2015), pp. 6–8; Robert A. Pape, “Response to Roland Paris Article”, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 22, No. 1 (2015), pp. 9–10; Roland Paris, “The ‘Responsibility to Protect’ and the Structural Problems of Preventive Humanitarian Intervention”, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 21, No. 5 (2014), pp. 569–603; Ramesh Thakur, “R2P's ‘Structural’ Problems: A Response to Roland Paris”, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 22, No.1 (2015), pp. 11–25.View all notes

None of the questions have easy solutions, and as Paris argues in reply to his critics, the questions and debates that emerged from the Libya intervention have shown that the “debate over R2P and preventive humanitarian intervention is far from over”.⁸⁵

85. Roland Paris, “Responsibility to Protect: The Debate Continues”, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 22, No. 2 (2015), pp. 143–150, p. 149.View all notes

On a more practical policy level, despite the controversy, or even because of it, the Libya intervention debates might have generally contributed to a growth in familiarity with and the internationalisation⁸⁶

86. For an overview of R2P and the Finnemore/Sikkink model of norm development, see Edward Luck, “Building a Norm: The Responsibility to Protect Experience”, in Robert I. Rotberg (ed.), Mass Atrocity Crimes: Preventing Future Outrages (Cambridge, MA/Washington, DC: World Peace Foundation/Harvard Kennedy School Program on Intrastate Conflict/Brookings Institution Press, 2010), pp. 108–127.View all notes

of R2P and norms of protection. More states have started to appoint “focal points” to institutionalise the concept in their national bureaucracies, and several regional networks and activities sprang up to hold debates on R2P.⁸⁷

87. Lars Brozus and Raphaela Hobbach, “Lernen aus Ruanda”, SWP-Aktuell 2014, No. 19, April (2014), pp. 2–3.View all notes

Even the UN Security Council increasingly referred to the concept after 2011.⁸⁸

88. Bellamy, “From Tripoli to Damascus?”, op. cit., p. 26.View all notes

Between March 2011 and the point of writing, the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect listed 20 Security Council resolutions that used the term “responsibility to protect” in its summary overview.⁸⁹

89. Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, “R2P References in United Nations Security Council Resolutions and Presidential Statements”, GCR2P Report (May 2014), available: <http://bit.ly/1o8HUV6> (accessed 19 August 2014).View all notes

It included two explicit references to paragraphs 138 and 139 of the World Summit outcome document in thematic resolutions on small arms⁹⁰

90. UN Security Council, “Resolution 2117, UN doc. S/RES/2117 (2013)”, 26 September (New York: United Nations, 2013).View all notes

and genocide prevention.⁹¹

91. UN Security Council, “Resolution 2150, UN doc. S/RES/2150 (2014)”, 16 April (New York: United Nations, 2014).View all notes

These references to R2P mostly relate to specific country situations and emphasise the “primary responsibility” of the respective authorities to protect their populations. They thereby underline the sovereignty of these states and do not go against the understanding of sovereignty as proclaimed by China or Russia.⁹²

92. Interview with US diplomat, 23 May 2014; Interview with Richard Gowan, New York, 23 May 2014.View all notes

Therefore, the mere number of resolutions does not indicate an increase in normative support for R2P, in disagreement with a claim commonly made by R2P advocates.⁹³

93. Bellamy, “From Tripoli to Damascus”, op. cit.View all notes

Rather, the fact that references to the concept are less controversial than they were before 2011 supports the thesis that the Libya debates led to an increased familiarity with and use of the R2P concept.

Pointing to the agreement on R2P in the 2005 outcome document, Bellamy argued in 2008 that there was no urgent need for criteria that regulated the use of force in the context of R2P, because the very fact that the Security Council was the only authority allowed to mandate the use of force would guard against the abuse of the principle.⁹⁴

94. Alex J. Bellamy, “The Responsibility to Protect and the Problem of Military Intervention”, International Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 4 (2008), pp. 615–639, p. 629.View all notes

If this caveat had in fact ever convinced a state sceptical of R2P, Libya proved this argument decisively wrong. Significantly, the Libya case did so not only for the already sceptical postcolonial states, but also for those actors—states or civil society members—that had always supported R2P from a perspective of human security. The abuse of the Libya mandate in this way led to a reordering of the coalitions and arguments in international debates on protection.

In previous instances of intervention debates (for example, on Kosovo or Darfur⁹⁵

95. Cf. Verhoeven, Soares de Oliveira and Jaganathan, in this issue.View all notes

), the interventionist arguments based on human security and major power exceptionalist perspectives were pitched against arguments based on postcolonial, legalistic or anti-imperialist perspectives. After Libya, the supporters of human security joined the latter. As described above, the majority of states, civil society actors and academics formed an opposition to regime change that combined legal and geopolitical arguments against the removal of a functioning government, with those arguments made from a human security perspective. Therefore, the debates on the Libya intervention ultimately sharpened the contours of what most actors believed should be included in R2P, as this majority made a point of emphasising that regime change was incompatible with the concept or the normative idea of protection more generally.⁹⁶

96. For statements by traditional proponents of R2P arguing that regime change should not be a part of R2P, see, e.g., Evans, “Interview: The R2P Balance Sheet after Libya”, op. cit.; Thakur, “R2P, Libya and International Politics”, op. cit.; Giselle Lopez, “Responsibility to Protect at a Crossroads: The Crisis in Libya”, in Anthony Chase (ed.), Transatlantic Perspectives on Diplomacy and Diversity (New York: Humanity in Action Press, 2015), pp. 119–138.View all notes

This shift in coalitions was possible to a large extent because the countries leading the Libya intervention did not engage with the arguments against regime change as described above. In practice, the split by the human security advocates from the (Western) exceptionalists could be observed in at least two ways in the post-Libya debates. First, there was growth in support for discussing criteria for the use of force to protect civilians and more accountability of those implementing a protection mandate issued by the Security Council. Second, the poisoned atmosphere in the Security Council did not prevent an increase in force mandated by the council to protect civilians in peacekeeping operations—a system that already fulfilled these accountability requirements.

One direct consequence of the Libya intervention was the Brazilian proposal of “responsibility while protecting” (RwP).⁹⁷

97. UN Security Council and UN General Assembly, “Letter Dated 9 November 2011 from the Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations Addressed to the Secretary-General. Responsibility While Protecting: Elements for the Development and Promotion of a Concept, UN Doc. S/2011/701” (9 November 2011). Cf. Stuenkel, Tourinho and Brockmeier, in this issue.View all notes

The proposal called for a renewal of the discussion on the criteria for when and how force should be employed to protect civilians, and for greater accountability for those that implement the mandate by the Security Council.⁹⁸

98. Cf. Stuenkel, Tourinho and Brockmeier, in this issue. View all notes

The criteria that should guide Security Council authorisation of the use of force in such circumstances were already subject to discussions during the work of the ICISS,⁹⁹

99. International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, op. cit.View all notes

the World Summit¹⁰⁰

100. Cf. Kurtz and Jaganathan, in this issue.View all notes

and the 2009 and 2010 General Assembly debates on R2P.¹⁰¹

101. Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, “Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: The 2009 General Assembly Debate: An Assessment” (New York: Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, 2009).View all notes

RwP revived these debates and was supported not only by India and South Africa, but also by a broad majority of states that resembled the coalition of those that criticised the course of regime change during the Libya intervention.¹⁰²

102. Cf. Stuenkel, Tourinho and Brockmeier, in this issue.View all notes

Moreover, despite the fallout of the Libya intervention, the Security Council, instead of weakening its protection language in specific country situations and peacekeeping mandates, strengthened this language and passed peace operation mandates with a focus of unprecedented degree on the protection of civilians.¹⁰³

103. Security Council Report, “Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict” (New York: Security Council Report, 2011); Security Council Report, “Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict” (2012), op. cit.View all notes

Just two weeks after the passage of Resolution 1973, the council authorised the peacekeeping mission in Côte d'Ivoire to “use all necessary measures to carry out its mandate to protect civilians”. In 2011 alone, it passed two new peacekeeping operations that included the authorisation to use force to protect civilians—in Abyei, Sudan and in South Sudan.¹⁰⁴

104. UN Security Council, “Resolution 1990, UN doc. S/RES/1990 (2011)”, 27 June (New York: United Nations, 2011); UN Security Council, “Resolution 1996, UN doc. S/RES/1996 (2011)”, 8 July (New York: United Nations, 2011).View all notes

In 2012, Resolution 2085 on Mali authorised the use of force by an African-led mission to, among other goals, “support the Malian authorities in their primary responsibility to protect the population”.¹⁰⁵

105. UN Security Council, “Resolution 2085, UN doc. S/RES/2085 (2012)”, 20 December (New York: United Nations, 2012).View all notes

In March 2013, the council unanimously decided to add an “intervention brigade” to the mandate of the peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.¹⁰⁶

106. UN Security Council, “Resolution 2098, UN doc. S/RES/2098”, 28 March (New York: United Nations, 2013).View all notes

The resolution specifically emphasised that the brigade was authorised “on an exceptional basis” and was not to set a precedent. Yet it was widely seen as a greater willingness of the council to authorise even offensive force for the purpose of protecting civilians.¹⁰⁷

107. Nicholas Kulish and Somini Sengupta, “New UN Brigade's Aggressive Stance in Africa Brings Success, and Risks”, New York Times, 12 November 2013.View all notes

One factor behind the growth of the use of force in peacekeeping for the protection of civilians despite the fallout over the use of force in Libya is the fact that UN peacekeeping is consistent with precisely those requirements demanded in the RwP proposal and reflected the concerns of human security advocates. Within the UN peacekeeping system, how a mission is conducted remains squarely within the control of the council. As a senior Brazilian diplomat put it, giving a UN mission the authority to use force to protect civilians is “different than the discussion of the council itself authorizing a third party to come in and conduct a military operation. In the case of the UN, there's more scrutiny. The UN is under the responsibility of providing information on what is happening. There is more control. There is more accountability.”¹⁰⁸

108. Interview with senior Brazilian diplomat, 5 August 2014.View all notes

There are other factors that help explain the increase in the mandating of force in peacekeeping for protection. Though passed under Chapter VII, the aforementioned missions were explicitly invited or negotiated in agreement with the host government. Given that the use of force in these cases was not mandated against a state-perpetrator, these cases evoke much less concern in terms of sovereignty.¹⁰⁹

109. Benner et al., op. cit., p. 11.View all notes

In addition, the situations in which the Security Council authorised the use of force after Libya concerned conflicts on the African continent that—in contrast to the crisis in Syria—did not involve significant geopolitical interests for those countries that would oppose the use of force because of sovereignty concerns. But a higher degree of accountability to the council through the established mechanisms of control in the UN peacekeeping system is an important explanatory factor behind this growth.