After accepting the US demand (27/2) as a perquisite for action to be taken (in an attempt to prevent a precedent that could see Americans prosecuted by the ICC for alleged crimes in other conflicts), that no one from an outside country that is not a member of the ICC (aka the mercenaries) can be prosecuted for their actions in Libya , finally on the March 17, the Security Council adopted the Resolution 1973. Demanding an immediate ceasefire in Libya, including an end to the current attacks against civilians, which it said might constitute “crimes against humanity”, imposed a ban on all flights in the country’s airspace and an arms embargo tightening sanctions on the Qaddafi regime and its supporters. Addmitetly, protecting civilians was the main goal of the resolution.
Mr. Edward C. Luck, IPI's Vice President for Research and Programs and a Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General in an interview to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung headlined "We Don’t Want to Wait Until the Dead Bodies Pile Up," praised the Council's Action on Libya as a ''Historic'' Implementation of the "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P). As for the goal of the intervention he emphasized the role of protecting the population rejecting any regime change attempt. The R2P was accepted from the UN in 2005 authorizing a military intervention whenever the one of the following 4 reasons occur: danger of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity. In case of Libya Mr. Luck stated that "there seemed to be crimes against humanity, that is, widespread and systematic attacks on the population with the knowledge of the authorities. The air attacks on peaceful protesters were outrageous (our emphasis). Nevertheless, the Security Council tried sanctions first - but the Qaddafi regime kept advancing. Finally, there was good reason to believe that a bloodbath in Benghazi was imminent. Answering if the UN had verified reports of widespread air attacks on peaceful protesters he said: "There are videos that suggest that such attacks have taken place. But the concept of RtoP rests on prevention: We don’t want to wait until dead bodies pile up and we can clinically prove exactly what happened, instead we seek to intervene soon enough to prevent mass violence. Colonel Qaddafi called the protesters “cockroaches.” That is what the perpetrators of the genocide in Rwanda called the Tutsis before they massacred them".
Interestingly, the ICC's related report "PUBLIC REDACTED Version Prosecutor’s Application Pursuant to Article 58 as to Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar GADDAFI, Saif Al‐Islam GADDAFI and Abdullah AL‐SENUSSI" doesn't contain a single reference of the alleged air attacks. Since about the ICC and the R2P we have written elsewhere in the following we are going to give a picture of how widely the Resolution 1973 was supported worldwide.
There are currently 193 member states in the UN, including every internationally recognised sovereign state in the world but the Vatican City.
The Security Council (SC) is made up of 15 member states, consisting of 5 permanent members China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States and 10 non-permanent members holding the seat for two years term, currently Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Colombia, Gabon, Germany, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal, South Africa. The five permanent members are the only to hold veto power over substantive resolutions like the one of military intervention. It is known that the UN adopted the resolution 1973 by a vote of 10 in favour to none against, with 5 abstentions (Brazil, China, Germany, India, Russian Federation).
In the follow tables you can see the percentage of the countries that voted in favour in three different ways: as a percentage of the total voting states of the SC, of the world population and of the number of the Total of the UN Member States (TUNMS).
Permanent Members holding veto power percentage of world population (WP)
China 19.32%
France 0,95%
UK 0,9%
Russia 2,06%
US 4,5%
Total 22,37% of the WP or 2,59% of the total UN state members (193)
Current Non Permanent Members percentage of WP
Herzegovina 0,055%
Brazil 2,75%
Colombia 0,66%
Gabon 0,022%
Germany 1,18%
India 17,45%
Lebanon 0,061%
Nigeria 2,28%
Portugal 0,15%
South Africa 0,73%
Total 25.358% of the WP or 5,18% of the total UN (193) state members.
So the Grand Total of the present Security Council's (SC) 15 members represent the 47,728% of the World's population or the 7,77% of the TUNMS.
Subtracting the population and the number of the 5 abstentions (Brazil, China, Germany, India, Russian Federation) we finally come to that the states voted in favour representing the 66,6% of the SC states (ten out of fifteen) at the same time represent the 4,968% of the WP and the 5,18% of the Total UN state members.
While so far France did violate the UN embargo providing arms to the rebels, NATO is currently killing civilians and tried to kill Qaddafi obviously in a regime change attempt, this operation presented as having a wide support and celebrated as a historic implementation of the R2P in fact was accepted by votes representing only the 4,968% of the World population or the 5,18% of the total number of the UN member states. With ether percentage a political party would barely manage to find a couple of seats into a National Parliament. So widely supported...
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