The prospect of international intervention legitimacy: case study of 2011 libyan armed conflict

CHAPTER FOUR: MECHANISMS TO INSURE NEUTRAL AND FAIR HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION

In international law, the principle of nonintervention, for example the right of every Sovereignty State to conduct its affairs without external interference is a universally applicable customary principle. Following a counter-interpretation which is extensive and not a legal concept, the international stage often appears today as a world of multifaceted interference. If the concept of interference is often used well beyond its legal dimension in the field of humanitarian action, it also gave rise to theoretical construction that assert itself as right in contradiction with the customary principle of non intervention.

The present chapter deals with the some mechanism to insure neutral and fair humanitarian intervention in the future generation.

4.1. Effective Enforcement of Equality Principle to end up Geostrategic Motives in Humanitarian Interventions

The history of international interventions testifies that superpowers have often decided to intervene in a given area when some «untold» interest is implied. Libya is a great oil-bearing country; Rwanda is not, to take a small illustration. In the case of Libya there were a hidden agenda of superpower countries to exploit oil.

4.1.1. The Hidden Geostrategic

NATO backed the rebels and as result thousands of civilians have been killed. Thus the purpose legalized to protect the civilian population has been sacrificed, unequivocally, in favor of the purpose not legalized to overthrow the regime.

Reading the reports on Sirte after the bombing, it realizes that British newspapers talk of the hometown of Qaddafi bombed into smithereens. A resident of the city is cited: "they bombard us, women and children are dying". According to the Daily Telegraph, 28 September 2011 the rebels who fired on the city knew strong although they fought against civilians but they said that the inhabitants of the city had "chosen to die".^240(*)

Support for weeks in such attacks has clearly exceeded the authorization of the use of force. This support was therefore illegal under the international law into force. What seems interesting even more is the grounds on which based the Security Council to authorize such interventions.

The standard that is often mentioned is called 'responsibility to protect'. It is not a mandatory standard of international law but an ethical principle in progressive evolution.^241(*) As such, it establishes a positive duty to ensure the safety and protection. Such duties differ from negative duties or prohibitions, insofar as they are not defined in terms of their content. These duties can be filled in different ways. Which of these will be appropriate, authorized or required? It depends on specific circumstances of each case, factual possibilities of people upon whom the duty devolves, as well as their legal limits.

Therefore, the principle of "responsibility to protect" can solve the question of the legitimacy of the war only by reference to the circumstances. Alone, it cannot do so. This is not primarily a matter of positive international law, but rather a question of fundamental legal principles.^242(*)

Here is the starting point: the violent and legal solutions to conflicts are mutually exclusive, conceptually and normative. This is the reason why straight starts with a fundamental prohibition of the use of force.

Obviously, there are exceptions to this prohibition principle, as it is also the case in municipal law. But these exceptions should be legal, too. They must themselves help to ensure the basic principle of any legal system, that one consisting in the prohibition of violence. These exceptions cannot perform this function if they are unlimited permissions of use of force; they can only do that if they are defined with accuracy in order to prevent the illegal third force.^243(*)

For the State as a guarantor of equality of the rights of all, these coercive measures must of course be varied. But for the subjects of law, who are naturally equal, they exist only as emergency measures.

* ²⁴⁰ The new of Daily Telegraph, 28 September 2011. Available on http//: www.dailytelegraph.com , accessed on 2/9/2013.

* ²⁴¹ John M. Shalikashvili, Shape, Respond, Prepare Now. A Military Strategy for a New Era. National Military Strategy, 2011, pp.216 - 218.

* ²⁴² Ibid.

* ²⁴³ Achcar G., La Nouvelle Guerre Froide : Le Monde Après le Kosovo, P.U.F., Paris, 2012, p. 67.