The Geopolitics of Humanitarian Intervention: The Responsibility to Protect in Libya

This article analyzes the geopolitical narratives produced by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States from 15 February through 18 March 2011 as a humanitarian intervention in Libya was debated. We analyzed 146 statements and press releases, as well as official documents including the United Nations Charter, the Genocide Convention, and the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), to gauge how the intervention was justified and how it was situated within the broader framework of humanitarianism. We argue that the thresholds for intervention are not well articulated and that the differences between the situation in Libya, which required an intervention, and others such as Bahrain, Darfur, or Syria that did not are unclear. The lack of thresholds and consistency creates a situation in which particular countries can use the cover of humanitarianism to legitimate an effort to remove a troublesome regime.