The Legality of the Nato Bombing in Libya

Ulfstein, Geir; Christiansen, Hege Føsund

doi:10.1017/s0020589312000565

Cited by 28 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…173 Just over two weeks later it followed up on this demand upon the Libyan Government, and authorised: Member States ... acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, and acting in cooperation with the Secretary-General, to take all necessary measures … to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack …, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory … 174 This Resolution 'represents the first mandate by the Security Council for a military intervention based on the responsibility to protect against the wishes of a functioning government'. 175 The resolution represents a clear, and quite prescriptive, Security Council mandate. The resolution specifically excluded occupying forces, while requiring the establishment of a no-fly zone in addition to further diplomatic efforts and military action to protect civilian populations.…”

Section: A 2011 Debate: Use Of Force Against Qaddafi's Regime In Libyamentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards Unilateralism? House of Commons Oversight of the Use of Force

Murray¹,

O’Donoghue²

2016

ICLQ

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Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. ABSTRACTEngaging democratically elected assemblies in national decision-making over the extraterritorial use of force seemingly provides a secure check on executive abuses of power. Many liberal democracies therefore maintain constitutional requirements that their elected national assembly must authorise decisions to use military force. By comparison, the UK Parliament has historically played a limited and often indirect role in authorising the use of force. From the vote on the Iraq War in 2003 onwards, however, the UK Parliament's role has increased to the point where, in August 2013, the defeat of a Government motion seeking approval for the use of force undermined efforts to build an international coalition to intervene in the on-going Syrian conflict. Whilst debate regarding this shift has hitherto concentrated on the degree to which parliamentary oversight of the war prerogative is desirable, in this article we consider what Parliament's evolving role heralds for the general relationship between domestic and UN mechanisms. We challenge the underlying assumption that Parliament's interventions mark an indisputably positive development in constraining the use of force. When coupled with the focus upon the doctrine of humanitarian intervention which has accompanied many controversial exercises of UK military force since the end of the Cold War, the involvement of Parliament in the decision-making process risks hollowing out UN Charter safeguards. Successive UK Governments have acquiesced to the extension of Parliament's role, with the effect of shifting the locus for legitimating uses of force away from UN institutions, where the UK cannot control the actions of other states, and into a domestic sphere which is susceptible to executive influence.

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Section: A 2011 Debate: Use Of Force Against Qaddafi's Regime In Libyamentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards Unilateralism? House of Commons Oversight of the Use of Force

Murray¹,

O’Donoghue²

2016

ICLQ

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“…As the air and sea campaign progressed, many protested that NATO forces were exceeding their mandate by conducting military strikes against Gaddafi forces even though they posed no immediate threat to civilians, and that by doing so effectively ensured regime change in Libya, because NATO's involvement gave opposition forces the upper hand in the civil war and ultimately enabled them to overthrow the Gaddafi regime. 68 …”

Section: Libyamentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing Democracy through Liberal International Law

Buchan¹

2015

CILJ

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By deploying the concepts of the international society and the international community this article constructs and defends an explanatory framework that enables us to better understand the complex international political and legal structure of the contemporary world order and better explain why violations of international peace and security occur. The international community describes an association of liberal states that has formed within the politically pluralist international society of sovereign states since the end of the Cold War and which considers only those states that exhibit respect for liberal values as legitimate. Moreover, it argues that the international community has demonstrated a tendency to deny non-liberal states their previously held sovereign right to nonintervention and has instituted a global campaign for their liberal reformation. The existence of the international community is evidenced by reference to the practice of liberal states vis-à-vis non-liberal states since the end of the Cold War and particular attention is paid to the reaction of the international community to the overthrow of the democratic regimes in Honduras and the Ivory Coast and the violent suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations in Libya and Syria. In light of these developments, this article assesses the impact of the international community upon international law and suggests that international law is being reformulated in order to construct a liberal international law that allows for the effective promotion of liberal values.

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“…Habermas and Barker develop two approaches. 117 The legitimation crisis and legitimation system Habermas develops offer an overarching understanding of legitimacy that goes beyond accepting or understanding what is or is not legitimate. This framework contributes to the study of the underlying process through which actors not just legitimise their actions and decisions, but also contest those claims.…”

Section: Legitimationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…131 Persuasion has also been lost as audiences are not "inert judges" but participants who interpret these claims strategically.…”

Section: Rhetoric Argumentation and Contestationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Malaysia "wished that the crisis in Kosovo could have been dealt with directly and in an effective manner by the Security Council" and expressed regret "that in the absence of Council action on the issue it has been necessary for measures to be taken outside of the Council." 117 Bahrain took a slightly nuanced view that did not recognise the legality of the intervention, but also refused to condemn NATO "because it would have encouraged the Belgrade authorities to continue with their current policy of 'ethnic cleansing' and led to more massacres and displacements for the Kosovar Albanians. "…”

Section: Normative Contestationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mind the gap: contestations of legality, legitimacy and the use of force in international politics

Frater¹

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Despite the ubiquity of the languages of legality and legitimacy in international relations, seldom do we address the gaps that can emerge between them. Hard cases involving the legality of the use of force seem to fall through the gaps, perhaps demonstrated best by the vague label placed on the Kosovo intervention, 'illegal but legitimate'. These cases are often treated as exceptions to the rule or anomalies which demonstrate at best the inadequacy of existing laws to deal with conflicts between legal regimes, or at worst the powerlessness of institutions in a system of powerful states. This dissertation examines the contestations between states over the use of force question in Rwanda, Kosovo, Libya and Iraq, noting that although states offered many of the same arguments to support their actions in each case, these claims received very different responses. Many point to these inconsistencies and argue the contestations and justifications offered to legitimise these actions and decisions are mere rhetoric. They equate this casuistry with sophistry and dismiss its value.However this dissertation disputes these assumptions, arguing the process of legitimation is more complex. It includes not only the role of central actors, but also audience members, some of whom attain higher positions of legitimacy as audience reframers. I argue that as central actors cast their contestations in terms which emphasise their own absolute legitimacy and legality, it is the frames of audience members and audience reframers in particular that blur the lines between legality and legitimacy and add this extra layer of complexity to the legitimation process. As these actors engage in the process of contestation they may themselves rhetorically entrap or rhetorically exclude other actors or their frames, or may be the entrapped or excluded themselves. This suggests not only that legality and legitimacy are not synonymous, but also that these two forms of language can be used as conjoined or oppositional concepts by states seeking to justify their actions to an international audience that exceeds what could be perceived as 'mere rhetoric'. This process is itself a vital aspect of understanding institutional processes in international relations.The goal of this dissertation is therefore not to trace the emergence or acceptance of new normative principles or their interpretations, but rather to trace the nuances of this process of legitimation to prove not only its ubiquity in these cases, but also its influence. Realist approaches that deny the viability of law and argue that states apply logics of consequence in these contestations are capable of explaining an individual actor's self-interested motivations in isolated instances. But understanding the legitimation process offers a more holistic understanding of the cases, the actors, their claims and the responses to these. This makes the legitimation process not only ubiquitous in these cases, but demonstrates the presence of normative expectations that are constitutive of and co...

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The Legality of the Nato Bombing in Libya

Cited by 28 publications

References 3 publications

Towards Unilateralism? House of Commons Oversight of the Use of Force

Towards Unilateralism? House of Commons Oversight of the Use of Force

Developing Democracy through Liberal International Law

Mind the gap: contestations of legality, legitimacy and the use of force in international politics

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