The civil war in Libya was an important event not only in its own right, but also because it served as a test case for multilateral crisis diplomacy, and for the United Nations sponsored principle of "responsibility to protect," nicknamed R2P. The R2P principle was unanimously adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 2005. Its underlying premise is that state sovereignty implies responsibility, not a license to kill. All states have an obligation to protect their own citizens from mass atrocities, including war crimes and crimes against humanity. When a given nation proves unwilling or unable to protect its own citizens, the international community may intervene through graduated measures up to and including the potential use of force. Since R2P impinges upon state sovereignty, it is not surprising that it has generated a number of passionate and often acrimonious debates within academic and policy circles and at the U.N. Reflecting that ambiguity, two distinct groups have emerged in judging the efficacy of R2P in Libya and the potential implications for the future. First, the liberal interventionists have argued that R2P in Libya was highly successful. Some stressed that R2P may be emerging as a powerful norm and perhaps as a working principle of international law. This was certainly the position of some politicians in countries like the United Kingdom and France, who had effectively argued for and participated in the intervention. The United States, perhaps aware of how R2P could potentially impinge on future unilateral actions, somehow provided a more muted, conditional endorsement of R2P.
Detractors, however, have argued that the intervention in Libya was far from a textbook example of how R2P was supposed to work. Much of their criticism has focused on NATO's abandonment of the U.N. Security Council's resolution authorizing intervention in favor of a much broader military effort supporting a sustained rebellion against Muammar Qaddafi that included a regime change which, perhaps not incidentally, served Western interests. They point out that China and Russia, which chose not to veto military intervention in Libya, are unlikely to ever abstain again and hence will make future U.N. authorization of R2P actions unlikely. That both countries subsequently vetoed much less dramatic U.N. Security Council actions against Syria seems to add credence to this view. As a result, the action in Libya may actually have done extensive damage to R2P's prospect of becoming a global principle when the R2P principle is distorted, it becomes less a needed reform to the international system and more a threat to its legitimacy. An unanswered question in the wake of all this is a more fundamental one how do we proceed when regime change is the only way to protect civilians?
The truth about the value of R2P lies perhaps somewhere between these overly extreme interpretations. The willingness of the international community to implement R2P in Libya may well have been linked to a number of conditions the horrific actions and language of the regime, as well as the early and massive defections of the upper strata of the country's military and civil servants and of its ambassadors that were sui generis. China's and Russia's refusal to participate in sanctions against Syria may not necessarily be fatal to future R2P operations. Russia is already reconsidering its stance, and China continues to engage in a robust internal debate on R2P while showing greater interest in U.N. peace operations.
The more general point to make, however, is that ultimately R2P's future success will depend in part on solidifying political support for it and on building institutional capacity. If both its acceptance in principle and its application in practice become effective, R2P could reduce and perhaps eliminate a return to the kind of mass atrocities that have marked much of the 20th century.
Finally, the fact that both the European Union and the Obama administration turned to the U.N. Security Council to legitimate an international intervention against Libya demonstrates that, even as non-Western powers are gaining in importance, and regional organizations like the Arab League find their own voice, the U.N. remains a steady forum for big power diplomacy.
