David Bosco: How Libya made humanitarian intervention less likely
Micah Zenko: After Qaddafi, every dictator will want to get his hands on a nuclear weapon
Gareth Evans: Can we stop atrocities without launching an all-out war?
Kyle Matthews: Libya is the beginning of the end for the world's worst villains
Kyle Matthews: Libya is the beginning of the end for the world's worst villains
Before and after the fall of Muammar al-Qaddafi and his cronies in Libya, many pundits and commentators erroneously blamed the "responsibility to protect" (R2P) doctrine for leading NATO into war. Many have gone further in claiming that R2P is headed for the trash heap, painting the doctrine as neocolonialism hiding behind the mask of humanitarianism. Yet none of them touches upon what actually transpired at the earliest stages of the Libyan crisis, nor do they proffer any practical alternatives for protecting civilians from mass atrocity crimes. This is a shame, because R2P is a rising international norm, not a declining one.
Although the Qaddafi regime was hardly the only Arab government to crack down on peaceful protesters amid the political unrest that swept the region early this year, it was the first to immediately apply military force. So violent was Tripoli's response that many Libyan diplomats resigned en masse, sickened by the brutality unleashed back home. The fact that Qaddafi threatened to go house to house to take care of the "rats" -- all who opposed his dictatorial rule -- was most likely the tipping point. All this transpired well before the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1973, authorizing the enforcement of a no-fly zone, imposing a weapons ban, and allowing NATO to take all necessary measures to protect civilians.
Successfully applying R2P, especially the military component, has always been hindered by two general groups. The first are countries that have the power to stop atrocities but are fearful of getting bogged down in a quagmire -- think of the United States circa 1994. The second are countries that block action, purposely, to protect narrow national interests -- think of Russia and China's recent double veto at the U.N. Security Council to protect the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Barack Obama's administration has played a quiet but significant role in reordering this calculus, both by supporting the NATO-led operation in Libya and in its recent decision to deploy 100 troops to Uganda to fight the Lord's Resistance Army. Even Canada, which once championed R2P but has been silent on the doctrine as of late, is now shifting its foreign policy so that the protection of civilians becomes more prominent. Among the countries -- mostly the BRICS -- on the other side of the issue, there is a slow realization that shielding tyrants who abuse their people does not play out well on the international stage or, in some cases, with domestic constituencies. Under the leadership of Jacob Zuma, South Africa in particular has been criticized for standing with dictators rather than with humanity, contrary to the legacy of Nelson Mandela.
Governments that do not uphold their responsibility to protect their own citizens from mass atrocity crimes also face an array of organizations and activists who are much better equipped than before to expose the crimes they commit and the countries that back them with military and political support. In an age of instantaneous electronic communication, governments can no longer hermitically seal their borders to suppress information at home or stop it from leaking to the outside world. Thanks to smartphones and social media platforms, the power of witness is only going to strengthen in the years ahead, robbing oppressive regimes of the one card they have left to play.
Kyle Matthews is senior deputy director of the Will to Intervene Project at Concordia University's Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies.
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