UNITED NATIONS AND THE MANAGEMENT OF 2011 LIBYAN POLITICAL UPRISING
ABSTRACT
The United Nations was formed in the immediate aftermath of World War II to serve as a platform for maintenance of international peace and security and elimination of threats to human freedom everywhere. Although, it has recorded a great measure of success in these directions, the 2011 Libyan political uprising that stemmed from the prevalence of authoritarian regimes and less emphasis on democratization in the country under Muammar Al-Gaddafi; and the manner of the UNSC enforcement of resolution 1973 of 2011 had indeed brought to the fore the flaws of the institutional capacity of the organization as an international peace and security structure. To this end, attempt was made in this research to investigate the role of the UN in the management of Libyan political uprising of 2011 under Muammar Gaddafi. In doing this, we relied mainly on secondary data that was collected through qualitative descriptive method. Applying logically, the core assumption of the Marxist political economy theory; it was one of the findings of this study that the manner of the enforcement of UNSC resolution 1973 by the US-NATO led coalition contravened the UN mandate on Libya and that the US-NATO led humanitarian intervention escalated human rights violation during the 2011 political uprising in Libya. That the decision of the UN to intervene in the Libyan democratic protest through the enforcement of resolution 1973 was more facilitated by economic interest of the intervening states. Arising from these findings therefore, we recommended the UN, except in proven cases of genocide, should avoid the employment of force in the settlement of intra state dispute; and that the UN should be very precise and use clear language so as to avoid contraventions in the mandate and violations of human rights in such cases.