The African Union and the responsibility to protect in Libya

Abstract

The Libyan crisis of 2011 was catalysed by the Arab Spring developments in North Africa, where the citizens in those countries protested against dictatorial regimes in those countries. Due to the prevalent mass atrocities and the staunch tough approach taken by Gaddafi, the African Union Peace and Security Council became quickly and ceased by the crisis in Libya. As a result the AU dispatched a diplomatic political mission to try and resolve the intensifying conflict situation. Yet, apart from its duties inherent in the Responsibility to Protect norm, the AU is legally instructed by its Constitutive Act to forcefully intervene in peace and security situations, specifically, to protect civilian populations from mass atrocity crimes. Therefore the uprising in Libya, which expressed a situation similar to the thresholds implicit in both provisions, gave the AU the opportunity to exercise both, its constitutive legal commitments and its R2P obligations. However, the events, during and after the Civil War in Libya, demonstrated that the AU had failed to deliver on both its protection responsibilities and on its legal commitments, as effectively as it would have desired or rather expected. This dissertation therefore, tries to examine and evaluate the African Union's response to the Libyan crisis of 2011 from both a Responsibility to Protect perspective, but also from the standpoint of the Article 4(h) of the Constitutive Act. Such an analysis is aimed to determine whether or not, the AU exhibited any signs of organizational dysfunction. The research method adopts an exploratory case study approach, using both primary and secondary sources as methods of data collection. The study looked at the weaknesses that affected the African Union in trying to look for a solution to the Libyan crisis, by exploring the measures AU took to respond to the crisis, the AU organs and mechanisms that were greatly engaged in looking for the solution to the crisis, and whether the measures undertaken were sufficient in resolving the crisis. The general findings from this research in these areas have indeed shown that the African Union displayed certain forms of pathological behaviour in its response to the Libyan Crisis, which led it to unproductive results that led the organization to become increasingly side-lined.