by Carl Teichrib
Forcing Change
On a recent radio show I was asked about the international implications of sending forces into Libyan airspace. Although I hadn’t been watching the news every minute of every waking hour, the question didn’t catch me off guard: R2P – the Responsibility to Protect (aka: Right to Protect).
Upfront, I don’t agree with Libya’s shyster government, one with a history of repression. Indeed, the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Libya’s official name) has been led by an authoritarian ruler for too long. Yet, until a few months ago, Muammar Gaddafi and his government had been a darling of the international community.
In 2008 Libya held the presidency of the United Nations Security Council, then it took the lead in the UN General Assembly the following year. Libya was elected to the UN Human Rights Council and chaired the African Union, both in 2010. Today it’s a major shareholder in the African Development Bank and presides over OPEC. And in January 2011, Libya was commended by the the UN Human Rights Council in its Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review: Libyan Arab Jamahiriya – applauding the “country’s commitment to upholding human rights on the ground.”
Then came the demonstrations, the brutal government reactions, armed confrontations, a surge in refugees fleeing the nation – including refugee deaths in the Mediterranean, international posturing by world leaders, and air-strikes by a coalition that initially waffled between “overthrowing” or “not overthrowing” Gaddafi.
The Libyan crisis is ongoing as I write this article, and the endpoint is anything but clear. Regardless, the question from my radio host wasn’t difficult to answer: This action against Libya, either right or wrong, will reinforce the R2P agenda. In the words of the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect; “If the UN and NATO had failed to take stronger actions, we would now being [sic] questioning whether the commitment to RtoP holds any value.”[1]
We will elaborate-on and critique “Responsibility to Protect” in the final installment of the One World, One Force series. However, a short introduction is necessary as R2P represents the manifestation of “international authority” and “force.” Simply put, R2P holds that when a nation fails to properly safeguard its own citizens, the global community has the responsibility to actively intervene through the use of collective force. In the present environment this national failure includes genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and other similar crimes against humanity. Clearly, a moral high-ground frames the public and political perception of Responsibility to Protect, yet significant contradictions and concerns exist; including humanitarian intervention as a pretext for other geopolitical goals. Click here to read more.
