Introduction

Summary

In recent years, while Libya has gradually slid into a state of chaos, lawlessness, and violence, the views concerning the international response to the Libyan crisis in 2011 have also shifted noticeably. In 2011, despite the controversy over NATO’s intervention in Libya, numerous actors involved – as well as observers – concurred in their positive assessment of the decision to intervene in the country. The German magazine Der Spiegel qualified the decision as a shift by the UN “from peace to people,” and as “a turning point in international relations”¹ – reflecting sentiments echoed elsewhere at the time. Throughout 2011, the intervention in Libya was frequently considered an important step toward a growing acceptance of foreign interference on humanitarian grounds.² In the summer of 2012, after the first elections in nearly fifty years had taken place in Libya, an academic research report stated, while contrasting the situation in Libya with previous experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq: “In a period in which the future of large-scale interventions is in doubt, the Libyan case may offer precedents for future post-conflict situations.”³