Justice and the Libyan crisis: the ICC's role under Security Council Resolution 1970
On the evening of Saturday 26 February 2011 the United Nations (UN) Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1970 (2011) referring the situation in Libya to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The resolution was part of a robust set of Security Council measures directed at the Libyan regime, including a travel ban and asset freezes for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his associates, and an arms embargo. It was the first concrete action by the Security Council in respect of the events that began several weeks earlier, as increasing reports of attacks on civilians in Libya confirmed the lengths to which Gaddafi would go to cling to power.
Intervention by the international community at this stage was largely welcomed across the globe and among Libyans on the receiving end of Gaddafi’s offensive. Less than three months later, and in the wake of a second Security Council resolution authorising a no-fly zone and the use of ‘all means necessary’ short of foreign occupation to protect civilians in Libya (Resolution 1973), much has changed.
The role of international military forces in ending the bloodshed is now being questioned and criticised in Africa, at the African Union (AU), and beyond. While the focus of this condemnation is on the nature and impact of military operations underway in Libya, there is a real chance that the justice leg of the Security Council’s intervention will be tarred with the same brush. For African leaders – most of whom are already reluctant to support the ICC – a rejection of international interventions in Libya more broadly can all too easily be extended to the ICC’s work in that country. Given the potential that the ICC has in this case to prevent future atrocities by acting quickly and decisively, a lack of cooperation from African states would be regrettable for the thousands of victims of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Libya.
