Libya, the Responsibility to Protect and the Future of Humanitarian Intervention

by Hehir, Aidan; Murray, Robert

• ISBN13: 9781137273949
• ISBN10: 1137273941
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-05-29
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This book brings together internationally renowned academics from Europe and North America offering a uniquely comprehensive and timely analysis of the intervention in Libya in 2011. The military intervention in Libya in March 2011 generated heated debate internationally and reinvigorated interest in humanitarian intervention. The action was widely heralded as a surprisingly robust and effective response to a looming mass atrocity. This volume critically analyses the intervention and challenges the dominant positive narrative, especially the ostensibly causal role played by the 'Responsiblity to Protect' doctrine (R2P). The contributors assess the Libyan intervention in the context of a number of contemporary trends and ongoing debates and argue that the manner in which the intervention was sanctioned, prosecuted and justified has a number of troubling implications for both the future of humanitarian intervention and international peace and security.

Author Biography

Aidan Hehir is Director of the Security and International Relations Programme at the University of Westminster, UK. He has previously worked at the University of Limerick, Ireland and the University of Sheffield, UK. He is the author/editor of six books and Assistant Editor of the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.
Robert W. Murray is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Alberta, Canada. He has served as a faculty member at both the University of Alberta and Brock University, Canada, and was a Member Scholar at the International Institute for Qualitative Methodology.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures and Tables
1. Introduction: Libya and the Responsibility to Protect; Aidan Hehir
2. Humanitarianism, Responsibility or Rationality? Evaluating Intervention as State Strategy; Robert W. Murray
3. The Responsibility to Protect as the Apotheosis of Liberal Teleology; Aidan Hehir
4. 'My Fears, Alas, Were Not Unfounded:' Africa's Responses to the Libya Conflict; Alex de Waal
5. Africa's Emerging Regional Security Culture and the Intervention in Libya; Theresa Reinold
6. The Use – and Misuse – of R2P: the Case of Canada; Kim Richard Nossal
7. The (D)evolution of a Norm: R2P, the Bosnia Generation and Humanitarian Intervention in Libya; Eric A. Heinze and Brent J. Steele
8. The UN Security Council on Libya: Legitimation or Dissimulation?; Tom Keating
9. NATO's Intervention in Libya: A Humanitarian Success?; Alan Kuperman
10. Conclusion: The Responsibility to Protect after Libya; Robert W. Murray