Speaking in the House of Lords today, former UNA-UK Chair Lord Hannay of Chiswick, hailed the 'watershed nature' of UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which made reference to the 'responsibility to protect' (R2P). Endorsed by all 192 UN Member States in 2005, this principle enshrines the responsibility of the international community to intervene when a state is unable or unwilling to protect its citizens. In practice, it has proved difficult to implement and recent UN action on Libya is seen as the first real instance of 'R2P' in action.
Lord Hannay warned that it is 'crucial to stick firmly to the mandate' to protect Libyan civilians and that if the mandate imposes constraints, then 'they are surely worth accepting as a necessary price for keeping together a wide coalition including, above all, the Arab League. That is the argument against being drawn into loose talk about targeting Gaddafi or speculating on the case for allowing mission creep to bring us towards regime change'.
He also said he found assertions that SCR 1973 in some way overrides or provides a way round the arms embargo on Libya 'fairly dubious and not very convincing'.
