The Responsibility to Protect and Libya: Wait and see

A few months ago I drafted an article for Precedent Magazine on the Responsibility to Protect and Libya.  It was tricky because the situation in Libya was very fluid and I was submitting almost a month ahead of time.  Also, Precedent Magazine had a hard limit of 620 words which meant that a lot of the interesting background was left out (such as the Security Council dynamics, and the surprising lack of debate in our Parliament and then during the election).  However, I think the premise of the article still stands.  You can find the article here so feel free to judge for yourself and let me know.

It is now clear that many members of the coalition, including Canada, see regime change in Libya as the end game.  Interestingly, Elizabeth May, the only member of Parliament to vote against the motion to extend the mission in Libya, did so on the basis that the  goals of the mission had changed:  "We have seen what is now referred to as mission creep, an extension of the responsibility to protect within Libya to a goal of regime change."  (If you're interested, you can find the entire debate in Parliament here.)

Presumably based on the assumption (hope?) that it's only a matter of time before Gadhafi is ousted, plans are apparently being drawn up by officials from the UK, US and others with the Libyan opposition for a post-Gadhafi Libya, including a possible peacekeeping mission (see AP article here).  In terms of Canada, we've recognized Libya's Transitional National Council as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people and Foreign Minister John Baird is planning on traveling to Libya to meet with NTC leaders "to assess Libya's most pressing current and future needs."  The only stumbling block is that Ghadafi doesn't seem to be leaving...

So will Libya represent an important shift by the international community towards the acceptance of our Responsibility to Protect against mass atrocities or will the focus on regime change lead to a backlash against R2P?  It all depends on how the mission in Libya ends.  While I'm hopeful that it will be the former, it's too early to tell.