UN Security Council Resolution 1973 (which you can download here) authorizes a no-fly zone in Libya, as well as some other things. The scope of those other things, though, is the source of much contention. The no-fly zone, as far as I can tell, is pretty straight forward. Paragraph 8 authorizes member states “to take all necessary measures to enforce compliance with the ban on flights,” which, it seems, safely encompasses much of the preemptive bombing the U.S. and its allies subsequently undertook.
The more ambiguous passage of the resolution is paragraph 4, which authorizes member states “to take all necessary measures” to “protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack…” The big exception to the allowed measures is that they must not include “a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory…” May seem fairly straightforward, but here are the pertinent questions: What is a civilian? What is an occupation force? And what is a necessary measure?
The PBS Newshour asked the first question – what is a civilian – to Susan Rice the day after the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1973, only to hear random facts about civilians instead of an actual answer:
RAY SUAREZ: As you say, the president declared that all attacks on civilians must stop. But do you read the word “civilians” to include those who have taken up arms against the government? Are they civilians or combatants?
SUSAN RICE: Well, they’re — we’re about the business of protecting civilians. And there are civilians at extraordinary risk, 700,000 of them in the city of Benghazi.
And civilians have been the victims towns in Misrata and Zawiyah and Ajdabiya, where Gadhafi forces continue to attack. So, that is the focus, that is the purpose of the Council resolution passed yesterday. And that’s, as the president said today, what we will be implementing.
According to the New York Times, senior Obama administration legal advisers say rebel fighters are not civilians, in theory, but in practice, the combatant-civilian lines are blurred:
Noncombatants and the various shades of opposition, resistance and rebellion “are so intermixed that it is not feasible to discern where the boundary between the civilians and opposition forces lie,” the official said, adding: “There are also those civilians entitled to protection that may be armed in order to protect their families, homes, businesses, and communities. Other civilians may join the rebels at certain stages, becoming armed combatants, and then decide to return home for whatever reason, thus transitioning back to civilian non-combatants.”
As for the foreign occupation force question, a BBC analysis sums it up:
This is a message to the Arab world – this is not another Iraq. This is an operation with a clear limit. Is occupation too specific a term? Might it allow some ground operations like the deployment of Special Forces?
Apparently, the answer is yes, for as the New York Times reports, CIA agents and British special forces have been in Libya for weeks.
And as for necessary measures for protecting civilians, does that include bombing Qaddafi’s forces when they are not immediately threatening civilian life? Arming the rebels, which Obama has authorized? Taking out Qaddafi? The BBC‘s Robin Lustig puts it nicely:
But of course, it isn’t about dictionary definitions at all, is it? I don’t envy the poor lawyers going through the military target lists, deciding line by line, yes, this target is covered by the UN resolution, and no, this target isn’t.
As always, it’s about political will. So the real decisions will be taken in Cairo (headquarters of the Arab League), Brussels (headquarters of NATO), London, Paris and Washington.
There’s really only one big decision they need to make: when to stop. Is Gaddafi’s defeat, overthrow, or death deemed to be “essential, indispensable, vital” to the protection of civilians from the threat of attack? Or would a negotiated ceasefire do?
And when pondering what is a civilian, what is an occupation force, and what is a necessary measure, it may also be useful to ponder this passage from Through the Looking Glass, which Lustig also quotes:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be the master – that’s all.”
