Humanitarian intervention in Libya

Proponents of legal unilateral humanitarian intervention must be aware that that development would mean that more wars are authorised. And war, even when carried out for humanitarian purposes, is ugly and deadly. The main tactic likely to be used against Gaddafi by international forces will be aerial bombing, which will likely cause lots of civilian casualties or "collateral damage", just as it did in Kosovo. A humanitarian "smart bomb" is often very dumb, especially when dropped from a high height.

Further, unilateral humanitarian intervention is far more likely to be abused by those States capable of invading others than collective action authorised by the Security Council. While people may bemoan its slowness, its gridlock also acts as a failsafe. After all, Hitler claimed his invasion of Czechoslovakia had a humanitarian purpose. I am not in favour of a change in international law which authorises humanitarian intervention.

Indeed, Resolution 1973 only tells against the necessity of such a change. While we can all resent the fact that appropriate actions can be stymied by a single veto, let us not forget that Russia and China have chosen not to expend the political capital on a veto here despite their clear distaste for military action in this instance. When international action (whether involving the use of force or not) is truly supported by the international community, a veto is not impossible but is far less likely. (In contrast, globally unpopular action such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq will likely get vetoed. And of course vetoes will be used to protect the vetoing State and its close allies as is the case with the US and Israel, and the likely case of Russia with Serbia had a vote ever been taken on proposed intervention in Kosovo in 1999).

Should the West have acted earlier anyway?

Perhaps the West should have just ignored the law. That is, keep the law as it is, but recognise that sometimes it really is "legitimate" to break the law. Perhaps the moral imperative of saving Libyans is more compelling than the moral imperative of obeying international law. I have no doubt that moral considerations can outweigh legal considerations, but I have doubts that this situation arose in Libya. One can never prove the counterfactual, so we'll never know if early Western intervention would have somehow been preferable to UN-authorised intervention now. While I agree that morality can theoretically trump legality, there must be a presumption in favour of the legality when there are extreme uncertainties in pursuing the illegal path. And there are so many considerations that muddy the waters. The optics of illegal Western bombing of an Arab State are not good, particularly in light of the deeply resented Iraqi invasion. Such intervention could have been used by Arab leaders to put down their own "Arab spring" protests by labelling them as Western imperialist agents. Certainly, the endorsement of a Libya no fly zone by the Arab League last week may have allayed those concerns (and that endorsement was probably a necessary precursor to the Security Council's decision). However, the precedent value of illegal action is deeply problematic: after all Russia justified its 2008 incursion into Georgia by referring to the Kosovo precedent.

Should the international community be intervening in Libya?

The above is written on the assumption that humanitarian intervention, even if it is legal which this intervention will be, is a good idea in Libya at this time. It may not be. War is war, and it is unpredictable and messy. Humanitarian intervention may not work – Somalia for example remains a mess nearly 20 years after the UN authorised intervention in 1992. Despite this, I am personally in favour of the Resolution. I say this in full awareness that the alleged humanitarian motives behind any instance of war are always suspect. States are inherently political rather than moral creatures so France, the UK, the US and the Arab League have all, for whatever reason, decided that war in this case is in their interests. Those interests probably include humanitarian considerations but probably include other less noble motives. Germany has decided that it is not in its interests and abstained. And Russia and China don't like it, but have decided that a veto is not in their interests. Despite the undoubted existence of non-humanitarian interests and motives, I believe (and fervently hope) the consequences of international intervention in Libya will be less horrific at this time than the fairly predictable consequences of Gaddafi rolling over the rebels. But I cannot know, and nor, frankly, can anybody else.

*My points regarding rebellion and international law owe much to previous analyses by Dr Ben Saul (University of Sydney), which were written in a different context. Of course, Ben can't take any responsibility for any mistakes I have made above(!)