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The use of force to protect civilians and humanitarian action: the case of Libya and beyond

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2012

Bruno Pommier
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Abstract

The Libyan crisis of 2011 has again raised the crucial problem of the choice of means in protecting civilians. Authorized by the international community as part of military operations in Libya, the use of force in protecting civilians has revived the concept of ‘humanitarian war’ and has raised a number of issues for humanitarian organizations, in particular concerning the notion of neutral, impartial, and independent humanitarian action.1 The article focuses on these humanitarian issues and, inter alia, on the possible impact on humanitarian action of the concept of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which was at the basis of the intervention in Libya.

Type
Humanitarian Principles Put at Test
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 93 , Issue 884: The future of humanitarian action , December 2011 , pp. 1063 - 1083
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 2012

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References

1 A much debated and controversial notion, in particular during the Kosovo war. This use of the term ‘humanitarian’ to qualify and even justify the use of armed force is of great concern to many humanitarian actors who base their actions on agreement between parties. On this topic, see Cornelio Sommaruga (the former ICRC President), ‘Il n'y a pas de “guerre humanitaire”’, paper given at ‘Le droit international humanitaire au seuil du troisième millénaire: bilan et perspectives’ conference, 30 October 1999, Geneva, available at: http://www.horizons-et-debats.ch/9_10/cicr/pas%20de%20guerre%20humanitaire.htm (last visited October 2011).

2 See UNSC Res. 1973, 17 March 2011.

3 Chapter VII of the UN Charter (arts 39–51), entitled ‘Action with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression’, is the chapter authorizing the use of force.

4 UNGA Res. 43/131, 8 December 1988 and 45/100, 14 December 1990, vectors of the right of intervention, already presented a dichotomy between the responsibilities of the state on whose territory the violations were committed and those incumbent upon the community of states.

5 Kofi A. Annan, ‘We the peoples: the role of the united nations in the twenty-first century’, UNGA Doc. A/54/2000, 27 March 2000: ‘if humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica – to gross and systematic violations of human rights that offend every precept of our common humanity?’, available at: http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan000923.pdf (last visited December 2011).

6 Bettati, Mario and Kouchner, Bernard, Le devoir d'ingérence, Editions Denoël, Paris, 1987Google Scholar; Bettati, Mario, Le droit d'ingérence, Éditions Odile Jacob, Paris, 1996Google Scholar.

7 See ‘The 2005 World Summit’, High-level plenary meeting of the 60th session of the General Assembly, 14–16 September 2005, available at: http://www.un.org/summit2005/ (last visited October 2011).

8 The ‘Protection of Civilians in armed conflicts’ (PoC) brings together all the measures taken in conflicts and aimed at protecting civilians, measures rooted in the provisions of international humanitarian law (IHL), human rights, and rights of refugees. The PoC has been an established concept in the thematic agenda of the UN Security Council since 1999.

9 See UNSC Res. S/RES/1674, 28 April 2006, para. 4.

10 Criteria established in 2001 by the ICISS, which brought together members of the UN General Assembly.

11 UN Charter, Art. 39.

12 See UNSC Res. 1970, 26 February 2011, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/refworld/rwmain?docid=4d6ce9742 (last visited June 2011).

13 See UNSC Res. 1973, above note 2, preamble.

14 Ibid., para. 4.

15 Ibid., para. 8.

16 The doctrine of ‘just war’ is a conceptual model defining the conditions under which war is a morally acceptable action. There is a moral philosophy of war that has been developed since ancient times and conceptualized from the fourth century by Christian thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas. In modern times, Michael Walzer considers that, to be just, war must be undertaken only as a last resort; the probability of success must be greater than the damages inflicted; violence committed in the conflict must be proportionate to the damage inflicted; and civilians must be distinguished from the military aggressors. The ultimate goal of a just war is to restore peace. See Walzer, Michael, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, Basic Books, New York, 1977Google Scholar, with further editions in 1992, 2000, and 2006.

17 Common letter of Presidents Obama and Sarkozy and Prime Minister Cameron published in Le Figaro, The Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post, and Al-Hayat, 15 April 2011. See also the US State Department Press Release, 23 May 2011 (AFP), indicating that ‘the United States remains committed to protecting Libyan civilians and believes Qadhafi must leave power and Libya’, available at: http://188.93.97.21/headline/assistant-secretary-feltman's-travel-benghazi-libya (last visited December 2011).

18 The Libya Contact Group was a coalition of forty countries and international organizations entrusted with the political leadership of the implementation of the military campaign launched in the framework of Resolution 1973. The Contact Group brought together the contributors and supporters of the intervention and six international institutions, including the UN, the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the League of Arab States, and the Gulf Cooperation Council, the last three having observer status until the July meeting.

19 UNSC Res. 1973, above note 2, para. 4.

20 See ‘Frappes aériennes ou pas, Kadhafi menace Benghazi’, L'Express, 17 March 2011, available at: http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/monde/frappes-aeriennes-ou-pas-kadhafi-menace-benghazi_973573.html?xtor=x (last visited October 2011).

21 See ICRC, ‘IHL and other legal regimes: jus ad bellum and jus in bello’, 29 October 2010, available at: http://www.icrc.org/eng/war-and-law/ihl-other-legal-regmies/jus-in-bello-jus-ad-bellum/overview-jus-ad-bellum-jus-in-bello.htm (last visited December 2011).

22 Geneva Conventions, Common Article 1: ‘The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances’. Additional Protocol I (AP I), Art. 89: ‘In situations of serious violations of the Conventions or of this Protocol, the High Contracting Parties undertake to act, jointly or individually, in co-operation with the United Nations and in conformity with the United Nations Charter’.

23 See Sandoz, Yves, Swinarski, Christophe, and Zimmermann, Bruno (eds), Commentary on the Additional Protocols of 8 June 1977, ICRC/Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Geneva, 1987Google Scholar, paras. 3597–3599.

24 For the text of the code of conduct, see ‘A collection of codes of conduct issued by armed groups’, in International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 93, No. 882, June 2011, pp. 497–500, available at: http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/article/review-2011/irrc-882-codes-conduct.htm (last visited December 2011).

25 Michael Walzer, for example, says: ‘I do believe that there are just and even morally necessary wars’. See his interview with Dominique Simmonet, ‘Michael Walzer: “La guerre contre la terreur ne peut pas être unilatérale”’, L'Express, 25 October 2004, available at: http://www.lexpress.fr/culture/livre/la-guerre-contre-la-terreur-ne-peut-pas-etreunilaterale_820027.html (last visited December 2011).

26 Overseas Development Institute (ODI), ‘Friend or foe? Military intervention in Libya’, Briefing Note, May 2011, available at: http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/docs/7119.pdf (last visited December 2011).

27 UN General Assembly Resolution AG 46/182, 19 December 1991.

28 UN General Assembly Resolution AG 58/114, 5 February 2004.

29 For instance, the UK's humanitarian policy makes a series of commitments to respect humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence. See Department for International Development, (DFID) ‘Humanitarian principles and policy’, available at: http://www.dfid.gov.uk/what-we-do/key-issues/humanitarian-disasters-and-emergencies/humanitarian-principles-and-policy/ (last visited October 2011). For OCHA, humanitarian principles provide the fundamental foundations for humanitarian action; see OCHA, ‘What are humanitarian principles?’, available at: http://ochanet.unocha.org/p/Documents/OOM_HumPrinciple_English.pdf (last visited October 2011).

30 See, among other declarations, Valerie Amos's statement to the Security Council on the Libyan humanitarian situation, 9 May 2011, available at: http://ochanet.unocha.org/p/Documents/USG%20Amos%20briefing%20to%20the%20Security%20Council%20on%20Libya_9%20May%202011.pdf (last visited October 2011).

31 Simon Schorno, ‘MSF on the politics of humanitarian action’, Intercross weblog, 27 January 2012: ‘[Michael] Neuman explains why an honest debate about the realities of humanitarian action is today necessary and healthy, not only for MSF but for all humanitarian actors’, available at: http://intercrossblog.icrc.org/ (last visited January 2012).

32 Rieff, David, ‘Muammar el-Qaddafi's threat in March to unleash a bloodbath in rebel-held Benghazi was just the kind of extreme instance that R2P's framers had in mind’, in International Herald Tribune, 8 November 2011Google Scholar.

33 Marcel Boissard, ‘La responsabilité de protéger, un principe jetable et à usage unique (The responsibility to protect: a principle that is disposable and expendable)’, in Le Temps, 28 October 2011.

34 D. Rieff, above note 31.

35 Nougayrède, Nathalie ‘Réguler l'ingérence’, in Le Monde, 24 September 2011Google Scholar.

36 Cited in ibid.

37 See UN General Assembly, 66th session, Agenda items 14 and 117. Letter dated 9 November 2011 from the Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations, addressed to the Secretary-General, UN Doc. A/66/551–S/2011/701, 11 November 2011, available at: http://www.un.int/brazil/speech/Concept-Paper-%20RwP.pdf (last visited December 2011).

38 Ban Ki-moon, ‘Address to Stanley Foundation Conference on the Responsibility to Protect’, 18 January 2012, available at: http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocus/sgspeeches/statments_full.asp?statID=1433 (last visited January 2012).

39 Geneva Conventions, Common Article 1.

40 See Herlemont-Zoritchak, Nathalie, ‘Droit d'ingérence et droit humanitaire: les faux amis’, in Revue Humanitaire, Enjeux, Pratiques, Débats, 23 December 2009Google Scholar.

41 See ‘International Committee of the Red Cross: prevention policy’, in International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 91, No. 874, June 2009, pp. 415–430, available at: http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/article/review/review-874-p415.htm (last visited December 2011).

42 Rougier, Antoine, ‘La théorie de l'intervention d'humanité’, in Revue Générale de Droit International Public, Vol. 17, No. 1, 1910, p. 525Google Scholar.