A Model Humanitarian Intervention? Reassessing Nato's Libya Campaign

Dados Bibliográficos

ID11262365
AutoresAlan J Kuperman (0000-0002-2750-6752, Alan J. Kuperman is Associate Professor of Public Affairs in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin., autor correspondente)
Ano2013
Volume38
Fascículo1
Páginas105-136
Data de publicação2013-07-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoInternational Security (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0162-2889 • E-ISSN: 1531-4804
EditoraMIT Press - Journals (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1162/isec_a_00126
OpenAlexW2168107682
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas70
Referências citadas6

NATO's 2011 humanitarian military intervention in Libya has been hailed as a model for implementing the emerging norm of the responsibility to protect (R2P), on grounds that it prevented an impending bloodbath in Benghazi and facilitated the ouster of Libya's oppressive ruler, Muammar al-Qaddafi, who had targeted peaceful civilian protesters. Before the international community embraces such conclusions, however, a more rigorous assessment of the net humanitarian impact of NATO intervention in Libya is warranted. The conventional narrative is flawed in its portrayal of both the nature of the violence in Libya prior to the intervention and NATO's eventual objective of regime change. An examination of the course of violence in Libya before and after NATO's action shows that the intervention backfired. The intervention extended the war's duration about sixfold; increased its death toll approximately seven to ten times; and exacerbated human rights abuses, humanitarian suffering, Islamic radicalism, and weapons proliferation in Libya and its neighbors. If it is a “model intervention,” as senior NATO officials claim, it is a model of failure. Implementation of R2P must be reformed to address these unintended negative consequences and the dynamics underlying them. Only then will R2P be able to achieve its noble objectives

Development economics · Human rights · Humanitarian aid · Humanitarian crisis · Humanitarian intervention · International community · Intervention (counseling · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Refugee · Sociology · Unintended consequences · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Law and Human Rights · Law · Medicine · Peacebuilding and International Security · Public Administration