NATO, UN and Libya

The NATO intervention in Libya is being pronounced a victory yet the intervention overstepped its UN authorisation but that is being treated as neither here or there by politicians.

The World Court made clear in the Nicaragua decision of 1986, modern international law does not allow states to use force except when acting in self-defence against a substantial armed attack across its borders, and even then, only until the Security Council acts. The United Nations Security Council has the authority to mandate the use of force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter on behalf of peace and security, and also, on the basis of UN evolving practice, for humanitarian ends. The World Court in the 1992 Lockerbie case involving sanctions imposed on Libya in apparent violation of relevant treaty law concluded that whatever the Security Council decided needed to be regarded as authoritative even if it went against international law; that this was the last word so far as international law was concerned.

Security Council Resolution 1973 defined the mission as protecting threatened Libyan civilians against violent atrocities threatened by the Ghadafi government, with special reference at the time to an alleged imminent massacre of civilians in the then-besieged city of Benghazi. The phrase "all necessary measures" was justified at the time as providing the enforcers with a desirable margin of flexibility. Almost immediately, once NATO launched its operations it became obvious that an entirely new and controversial mission was underway than what was acknowledged during the debate that preceded the adoption of Resolution 1973. Once underway, the NATO operation quickly lost sight of the mission as authorised, and almost immediately acted to help the rebels win the war without much attention to the protection of Libyan civilians.

There is nothing new in governments claiming to be motivated by humanitarian concerns when they go to war. In the 1999 NATO’s Kosovo War, again ignoring the legalities, NATO intervened acting without any UNSC authorisation. It was a precedent not only for Libya but many argue for the claims of de facto authority to carry out the Iraq invasion by the "coalition of the willing" without gaining prior UN approval. Kosovo and Iraq circumvented the UN’s legally prescribed role of deciding when to authorise force on behalf of international peace and security. In Libya, a UNSC resolution was used as a cloak.

The Libya war was not being fought to overthrow a brutal dictator (though this happened). It was being fought over a key energy source—oil. In other words, no different from any of the wars that have taken place in modern times - a business war. Governments have to come up, these days, with plausible “humanitarian” and “democratic” reasons.Most people would prefer to live in peace. Consequently massive propaganda exercises are employed to present it as being in some way humanitarian. Ghadafy was nasty enough, but there are plenty of other nasty regimes, the worst being America’s main ally there, Saudi Arabia, which is still a mediaeval despotism.

The UN Charter is just a scrap of paper which has never stopped, and never will stop, any war. Its only effect has been to make governments that want to go to war find some loophole somewhere to wage a war they had decided on anyway. As long as capitalism lasts there will be wars so will government lies about the reasons for war. Capitalism may well breed war, but our apathy is also very much a part of the process.