From the White Man’s Burden to the Responsible Saviour: Justifying Humanitarian Intervention in Libya

Abstract:

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in conceptualising the political nature of human rights as well as intense debate over the precise nature of Western biases in the whole project. Spurred by the fresh renewal of radical theory, a growing body of literature explores the role that racialized power hierarchies have played in the human rights project through the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine. Drawing from critical human rights scholarship, this article explores the way human rights have been employed as a legitimising discourse for justifying military intervention in Libya. In doing so, it illustrates the Eurocentric conceptualisation of power, power hierarchies and subjectivities.

Key Words:

• Humanitarian intervention
• Human rights
• Libya
• Obama
• Qaddafi
• R2P
• United States

Notes

1 BBC (2016) President Obama: Libya aftermath ‘worst mistake’ of presidency, (11 April). Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36013703, accessed April 3, 2020.

2 Makau Mutua (2001) Savages, Victims, and Saviors: The Metaphor of Human Rights, Harvard International Law Journal, 42(1), pp. 201–245.

3 Lewis H. Morgan (1877) Ancient Society: Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization (Chicago: C. H. Kerr & Co).

4 Tim Ingold (2015) The Life of Lines (London: Routledge).

5 Costas Douzinas (2013) The Paradoxes of Human Rights, Constellations 20(1), pp. 51–67; Oscar E. Nybakken (1939) Humanitas Romana, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 70, pp. 396–413.

6 Morgan, “Ancient Society.”

7 John Stuart Mill (2006) A Few Words on Non-Intervention, New England Review, 27(3), pp. 252-264 (Original Mill work published 1859).

8 Ibid, p. 259.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 Jon Gorry (2000) ‘Just War’ or Just War? The Future(s) of a Tradition, Politics, 20(3), pp. 177–183.

14 Robin Dunford & Michael Neu (2019) Just War and the Responsibility to Protect: A Critique (London: Zed Books). Dam Kuwali (2011) The Responsibility to Protect: Implementation of Article 4(h) Intervention (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers).

15 David Trim (2013) Intervention in European History, c. 1520–1850, in Stefano Recchia & Jennifer M. Welsh (eds), Just and Unjust Military Intervention: European Thinkers from Vitoria to Mill, pp. 21–47, 34 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

16 David Trim (2011) Conclusion: Humanitarian Intervention in Historical Perspective, in Brendan Simms & David J. B. Trim (eds) Humanitarian Intervention A History, pp. 381–401 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

17 Trim, “Intervention in European History,” p. 25.

18 Dunford and Neu, “Just War.”

19 Alexis Heraclides & Ada Dialla (2015) Humanitarian Intervention in the Long Nineteenth Century: Setting the Precedent (Manchester: Manchester University Press).

20 Davide Rodogno (2012) Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman Empire, 1815-1914 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

21 Kuwali, “The Responsibility to Protect,” p. 56.

22 Ibid.

23 Heraclides & Dialla, “Humanitarian Intervention.”

24 Rudyard Kipling (1899) The White Man’s Burden, McClure’s Magazine, February.

25 Theodore Roosevelt (1904) Fourth Annual Message to Congress, 6 December. Available at: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1904/message-of-the-president, accessed October 27, 2021.

26 Adolf Hitler (1938) Reich Chancellor Letter to Prime Minister in the Crisis in Czechoslovakia, April 24-October 13, International Conciliation, 19, pp. 401–489, at p. 433; and Thomas M. Franck (2010) Humanitarian Intervention, in Samantha Besson & John Tasioulas (eds) The Philosophy of International Law, pp. 531–548, at p. 537 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

27 Hitler, “Letter,” p. 434.

28 Ibid, p. 435.

29 Anne Orford (1999) Muscular Humanitarianism: Reading the Narratives of the New Interventionism, European Journal of International Law, 10(4), pp. 679–711.

30 Brett Bowden (2009) The Empire of Civilization: The Evolution of an Imperial Idea, p. 161 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

31 Ibid, p. 162.

32 Jack Donnelly (1998) Human Rights: A New Standard of Civilization?, International Affairs, 74(1), pp. 1–23.

33 UNGA (2005) World Summit outcome document, UN (16 September). Available at: https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/generalassembly/docs/globalcompact/A_RES_60_1.pdf, accessed October 27, 2021.

34 Noele Crossley (2018) Is R2P Still Controversial? Continuity and Change in the Debate on “Humanitarian Intervention, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 31(5) pp. 1–22.

35 The US and its allies were afraid of a Russian veto because of the long strategic alliance between the Russians and the Serbs.

36 Ernesto Laclau & Chantal Mouffe (1985) Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, p. 112 (London: Verso).

37 Jason Glynos & David Howarth (2007) Logics of Critical Explanation in Social and Political Theory (London: Routledge).

38 Falk Ostermann (2016) The Discursive Construction of Intervention: Selves, Democratic Legacies, and Responsibility to Protect in French Discourse on Libya, European Security, 25(1), pp. 72–91.

39 Sassan Gholiagha (2015) ‘To Prevent Future Kosovos and Future Rwandas’: A Critical Constructivist View of the Responsibility to Protect, The International Journal of Human Rights, 19(8), pp. 1074–1097.

40 Sarka Kolmasova & Katerina Krulisova (2019) Legitimizing Military Action through “Rape-as-a-Weapon” Discourse in Libya: Critical Feminist Analysis, Politics & Gender, 15(1), pp. 130–150.

41 Chidochashe Nyere (2020) NATO’s 2011 Invasion of Libya: Colonialism Repackaged?, in Everisto Benyera (ed) Reimagining Justice, Human Rights and Leadership in Africa. Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, pp. 123–156 (Cham: Springer).

42 Gearóid Ó Tuathail & John Agnew (1992), Geopolitics and Discourse: Practical Geopolitical Reasoning in American Foreign Policy, Political Geography, 11(2), p. 195.

43 Ibid, pp. 195–196.

44 Barack Obama (2011d) 23 February address on Libya: The violence must stop. Available at: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barackobama/barackobamalibya.htm, accessed February 18, 2020.

45 Barack Obama (2011a) 18 March statement on Libya. Available at: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barackobama/barackobamalibyawarning.htm, accessed February 18, 2020.

46 Barack Obama (2011b) 19 March on authorization of Odyssey Dawn, Ltd Military Action in Libya. Available at: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barackobama/barackobamalibyaltdmilitaryaction.htm, accessed February 18, 2020.

47 Barack Obama (2011e) 28 March address to the Nation on Libya. Available at: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barackobama/barackobamalibyanationspeech.htm, accessed February 18, 2020.

48 Barack Obama (2011c) 20 September speech at United Nations High-Level Meeting on Libya. Available at: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barackobama/barackobamaunlibya.htm, accessed February 18, 2020.

49 Ilia Xypolia (2016b) The Rocky Road Ahead to Peace: The Arab Uprisings and the Conflict in Libya, Journal of Global Faultlines, 3(1), pp. 50–55.

50 Tim Dunne & Jess Gifkins (2011) Libya and the State of Intervention, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 65(5), pp. 515–529.

51 Patrick C. R. Terry (2015) The Libya Intervention (2011): Neither Lawful, nor Successful, The Comparative and International Law Journal of Southern Africa, 48(2), pp. 162–182.

52 Mark Kersten (2016) Justice in Conflict: The Effects of the International Criminal Court’s Interventions on Ending Wars and Building Peace (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Jason Ralph & Adrian Gallagher (2015) Legitimacy Faultlines in International Society: The Responsibility to Protect and Prosecute after Libya, Review of International Studies, 41(3), pp. 553–573.

53 Sarah Brockmeier, Oliver Stuenkel & Marcos Tourinho (2015) The Impact of the Libya Intervention Debates on Norms of Protection, Global Society, 30(1), pp. 113–133. Christopher Hobson (2016) Responding to Failure: The Responsibility to Protect after Libya, Millennium - Journal of International Studies, 44(3), pp. 433–454; and Simon Chesterman (2011) “Leading from Behind”: The Responsibility to Protect, the Obama Doctrine, and Humanitarian Intervention after Libya, Ethics & International Affairs, 25(3), pp. 279–285.

54 Jocelyn Vaughn & Tim Dunne (2015) Leading from the Front: America, Libya and the Localisation of R2P, Cooperation and Conflict, 50(1), pp. 29–49.

55 David Silander (2013) R2P–Principle and Practice? The UNSC on Libya, Journal of Applied Security Research, 8(2), pp. 262–284.

56 United Nations Security Council (2011a) Resolution 1970. Available at: http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/1970, accessed January 15, 2020.

57 United Nations Security Council (2011b) Resolution 1973. Available at: http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/1973, accessed January 15, 2020.

58 NATO (2011) NATO Secretary General makes historic Libya trip (31 October). Available at: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_80100.htm, accessed January 14, 2020.

59 AlJazeera (2016) Ex-NATO boss: Libya still a ‘model intervention’. Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/upfront/2016/10/nato-boss-libya-model-intervention-161022075802390.html, accessed January 14, 2020.

60 Charles E. Ziegler (2016) Contesting the Responsibility to Protect, International Studies Perspectives, 17(1), pp. 75–97.

61 UNSC (2011b).

62 UNSC (2011a).

63 Lucia Pradella & Sahar Taghdisi Rad (2017) Libya and Europe: Imperialism, Crisis and Migration, Third World Quarterly, 38(11), pp. 2411–2427; Matteo Capasso (2014) The Libyan Drawers: ‘Stateless Society,’ ‘Humanitarian Intervention,’ ‘Logic of Exception’ and ‘Traversing the Phantasy’, Middle East Critique, 23(4), pp. 387–404; and Maximilian Forte (2012) Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War on Libya and Africa (Montreal: Baraka Books).

64 Ray Bush, Giuliano Martiniello & Claire Mercer (2011) Humanitarian Imperialism, Review of African Political Economy, 38(129), pp. 357–365.

65 David P. Forsythe (2011) US Foreign Policy and Human Rights: Situating Obama, Human Rights Quarterly, 33(3), pp. 767–789.

66 Ibid.

67 Alexis de Tocqueville (2003) Democracy in America: and Two Essays on America (London: Penguin).

68 James W. Ceaser (2012) The Origins and Character of American Exceptionalism, American Political Thought, 1(1), pp. 3–28, page 13.

69 Ibid.

70 William Appleman Willams (1991) The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (New York: W. W. Norton & Company).

71 Andrew J. Bacevich (2009) The Tragedy Renewed: William Appleman Williams, World Affairs, 171(3), p. 67.

72 Henry Steel Commager (1978) The Empire of Reason: How Europe imagined and America Realized the Enlightenment (New York: Anchor Books).

73 Reginald Horsman (1981) Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

74 De Grazia (1984–85) cited in Ó Tuathail and Agnew, “Geopolitics and discourse,” p. 196.

75 Ó Tuathail & Agnew, “Geopolitics and Discourse,” p. 196.

76 The “leading from behind” label has been misleading. Although the UK and France took an active role in the military operation, it was again the American military that took the lion’s share of the military burden.

77 Georg Löfflmann (2015) Leading from behind – American Exceptionalism and President Obama’s post-American Vision of Hegemony, Geopolitics, 20(2), pp. 308–332.

78 Ibid, pp. 322–323.

79 J. Vaughn & T. Dunne (2015) ‘Leading from the Front: America, Libya and the Localisation of R2P’, Cooperation and Conflict, 50(1), pp. 29–49.

80 Gerson cited in Jacob Shively (2016) Hope, Change, Pragmatism: Analyzing Obama’s Grand Strategy, p. 8 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).

81 David Fitzgerald & David Ryan (2014) Obama, US Foreign Policy and the Dilemmas of Intervention, p. 92 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).

82 Joseph Rhodes & Mark Hlavacik (2015) ‘Imagining Moral Presidential Speech: Barack Obama’s Niebuhrian Nobel,’ Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 18(3), pp. 471–503.

83 Capasso, “The Libyan Drawers.”

84 Obama, “20 September Speech.”

85 Obama, “18 March Statement.”

86 Ibid.

87 Obama, “28 March Address.”

88 Ibid.

89 Obama, “20 September Speech.”

90 Ibid.

91 Ibid.

92 Obama, “23 February Address.”

93 Obama, “28 March Address.”

94 Obama, “20 September Speech.”

95 Obama, “23 February Address.”

96 Obama, “28 March Address.”

97 Obama, “20 September Speech.”

98 Obama, “28 March Address.”

99 Obama, “18 March Statement.”

100 Obama, “20 September Speech.”

101 Obama, “28 March Address.”

102 Ibid.

103 Ibid.

104 Ibid.

105 Obama, “18 March Statement.”

106 Obama, “19 March on Authorization.”

107 Obama, “28 March Address.”

108 Obama, “18 March Statement.”

109 Obama, “19 March on Authorization.”

110 Obama, “18 March Statement.”

111 Obama (2011e) “October Speech to UN.”

112 Obama, “28 March Address.”

113 Ibid.

114 Ibid.