How Libya may set a new global precedent for when international military action is -- and isn't -- warranted
In his speech last Monday, President Obama made the case that the U.S. and its allies had to take military action in Libya to prevent "a humanitarian catastrophe." This raises a political and moral question: With plenty of dictators and bloody rebellions on the global stage, which humanitarian crises justify international action?
The nature of Libya's crisis may help clarify that problem. It fits a pattern that began to emerge in the 1990s with Bosnia and Kosovo, two other states where a firm allied response curtailed bloodshed.
Together, the commonalities of these three cases suggest a new standard to guide future actions: Military intervention by an international coalition is justified to remedy ongoing, state-sponsored mass murder when the military plans carry low risks.
We may be witnessing an historic shift in international norms. After World War II, genocide appeared to be the widely accepted standard for humanitarian intervention. The 1948 UN Convention against genocide defined it as a set of acts "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." This helped hold criminals to account after the fact, but it proved insufficient to halt ongoing atrocities. No one came to rescue those who were being killed in Cambodia in the 1970s (2 million), Rwanda in the 1990s (800,000) and Darfur in the 2000s (200,000).