UN Legal Counsel: Saving Civilians Means 'Taking Action'
American Society of International Law - The Fairmount Hotel
The U.N. Security Council authorization of international military intervention in Libya reflects the complex relationship between current uses of force and international law related to peace. Responsibility to protect, a concept developed to shield populations from atrocities and the ravages of armed conflict, expressly was invoked with regard to Libya. A non-U.N. entity, NATO, was given the assignment of actual intervention. But there was no Security Council consensus to apply the responsibility to protect to other conflict-ridden regions. This panel explores the current tensions within the collective security structure established after World War and of the contours of the law of -- or right to -- peace.