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

4.2. Advocacy for New Rules Governing Humanitarian Action/ Intervention

Intervention: when, why and how? To avoid geopolitical implications of superpowers in humanitarian initiatives, some conditional criteria should rather be established as it is suggests through the following subsections. This section principally focuses on the use of military force for humanitarian purposes and the concept of pre-emptive self defence.

4.2.1. The Law of the Use of Force

The unilateral use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of sovereign states is prohibited under international law subject to two exceptions. This section will provide a comprehensive overview of the international legal framework regulating the use of military force by sovereign states including an explanation of the role of the collective security system, the power of the United Nations Security Council to authorize military intervention and the inherent right of states to use force in self defence. This section will also highlight some of the flaws in the current system which will then be explored in more detail in the other sections of the paper.^261(*)

4.2.1.1. Humanitarian Intervention

Since the tragedies of Rwanda and Srebrenica and the NATO intervention in Kosovo in the 1990s, it has been widely discussed whether or not there should be a right of humanitarian intervention. This section will examine the legality of humanitarian intervention and draw upon the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect to determine whether this position has changed. Syria will be used as a case study to illustrate when humanitarian intervention would be justified; the Syria case shows a textbook example of discrepancy between a written norm and application of the norm in practice. There is a discrepancy between purpose and impact.^262(*)

In Libya, a tyrant turned his guns on his own people. The UN Security Council invoked the Responsibility to Protect norm and endorsed international military intervention to save the Libyan people from an imminent massacre. In Syria, a tyrant has turned his guns on his own people. The UN Security Council is struggling to even formally condemn the actions that have left 1400 people dead, according to human rights groups, and led to some 4,000 Syrian refugees crossing the border into Turkey. Further, «in the case of Libya, the Arab League appealed to the UN Security Council to establish a no fly- zone over Libya. In the case of Syria, no such request has been done because of fear of regime change, of being the cause for civil war and regional instability». Russia and China believed that UN resolution 1973 on Libya has been stretched beyond its mandate in order to achieve a regime change and end Gadhafi's ruling. No such thing Russia and China wanted to happen in Syria.^263(*) Also in the case of Libya, the Libyan opposition cried out for help to the international community. The Syrian opposition, however, has not asked outside help in ending Assad's ruling.

Based on this short comparison of humanitarian intervention in the same situation of different countries (Syria and Libya) a researcher observes that the UN can be deadlocked on the decision whether or not to intervene when the situations calls for humanitarian intervention. The UN Security Council deadlock has to do with power politics and selfish interests of states who has right to veto in UN Security council. Some conflicts are so pressing that UN Security Council deadlock is a dead sentence for innocent civilians in the conflict area. Therefore, the international community, until the twenty-first century, was in need of a new measure or norm to address the problem of not being able to intervene when gross human rights atrocities are taking place.

* ²⁶¹ BETTATI M., op. cit., p. 57.

* ²⁶²«Genocide Watch Syria". Available on http://www.genocidewatch.org/images/Syria_11_July_7_Genocide.pdf. Accessed on 12 November 2013.

* ²⁶³ RICHARD C., op. cit., p. 49.