Norm circulation and responsibility to protect (R2P) : a retrospective analysis of the 2011 Libyan intervention

Abstract

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) invoked the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) during the Libyan crisis of February and March 2011. R2P was activated through Resolutions 1970 and 1973 on 26 February and 17 March 2011 respectively. Resolution 1973 authorised a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) intervention in Libya. The consequence was that many states, especially in the developing world, became concerned that R2P had been misused when NATO extended its mandate to ensure a regime change agenda. This led to the emerging narrative that R2P as a norm, like its predecessor on humanitarian intervention, is susceptible to abuse and misuse and that the potential risks associated with invoking R2P are too great. In the immediate aftermath of the Libyan intervention, Brazil proposed the Responsibility While Protecting (RwP) as a means to strengthen accountability measures and prevent future abuse of R2P. This study examines R2P as a norm and argues that the norm circulation model explains the emergence and evolution of norms in a way that is consistent with the evolution of R2P. This study contends that the norm lifecycle model is inadequate to address norm dynamics in their totality. The norm circulation model is for this study a critical tool of analysis to determine R2P’s status since the Libyan intervention. The model combines localisation, internalisation, and contestation of the norm to examine both the norm dynamic, and the evolution of a norm as it looks at agency and feedback that are considered central to the evolution of norms. This study contends that R2P is alive and remains an important part of the deliberations of the United Nations despite ongoing contestation on the implementation of R2P, especially in respect of pillar three, that provides for military intervention. Unlike humanitarian intervention, R2P is premised on the nexus between the state’s responsibility to its population and the sovereignty of the state. R2P provides a broad spectrum of options and interventions, apart from military intervention, which is a last resort. This study will however, through a retrospective analysis, of the NATO led 2011 Libyan intervention, examine the use of R2P and will argue that R2P at the United Nations continues to evolve as a norm within the international community.