A Postcolonial and Feminist Analysis of the United Nations (UN) Discourses Used to Implement Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in Libya in 2011

A Postcolonial and Feminist Analysis of the United Nations (UN) Discourses Used to Implement Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in Libya in 2011

Politics and International Studies

Twelve years have passed since the United Nations (UN) gave authorization for a military intervention in Libya in the name of humanitarianism. Since then, there are growing concerns about the future of the doctrine of “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P). This article engages with the literature surrounding R2P and provides an analysis of the concept from a postcolonial and feminist perspective. Using both theories as well as securitization theory, it also examines the discourse strategies used by the UN to legitimize the use of force against Gaddafi´s government. Among the strategies examined, the oversimplification of the conflict, the antagonization of Gaddafi, and the rape-as-a-tool-of-war discourse will be analysed. The paper concludes that R2P is not the apolitical tool it is argued to be. Rather, as Libya demonstrated, R2P embodies the “us vs the other” dichotomy and is used to reproduce Western values and ideology through paternalistic and colonial discourses that justify external intervention by rendering local agents incapable of protecting themselves. Humanitarian discourses are then argued to reinforce cultural and gendered stereotypes based on essentialist notions, which leads to the neglect of women´s agency, the perpetuation of cultural stereotypes regarding non-western people, a division between positive and negative masculinity, and the marginalization of certain collectives.

Sol Rodriguez

2023