ECAS 2013

While, at first glance, Qaddafi Libya's role in Africa has been most often described as a destabilising one, the reality is more nuanced, complex, and changing. This presentation intends to focus on the role Libya played in Chad, Central African Republic, and other countries in Sahel. It illustrates some permanencies in different contexts such as the will to be able to talk to all parties at the same time, a strong opposition, or distrust in front of any actor external to the continent and mixed attitudes towards would-be African regional powers.

Stability is more than often the efficient management of a certain kind of disorder. Qaddafi being overthrown, we enter in a period when all States and non-States actors in Libya's peripheries need to redefine what (in) stability means while Libya has to settle its own internal order. Crises in Fezzan/Chad, Mali, and CAR are to a certain extent the illustration of a new regional order yet to define.

Over 10 years, the African Union has succeeded in building an impressive record of institutional and operational achievements and has grown to become a privileged partner of the United Nations. As young as the AU is the ground-breaking responsibility to protect principle. Following its formal adoption by the international community in 2005, the UN has importantly emphasised the need for an effective global-regional partnership in implementing the R2P. At the regional level, the African Union stands out from other regional organisations for the particularly interventionist stance adopted on the terms of implementation of the principle.

Comprehended as an instance of R2P, the 2011 Libyan crisis provides an outstanding opportunity to gain insight into the realisation of this global-regional partnership. To this end, the paper situates the actions of the United Nations and the African Union within the R2P three-pillar strategy and assesses the consistency of their respective approach as well as the extent of their cooperation. In light of the adverse consequences ensuing from the manifest lack of cooperation between the UN and the AU in Libya, avenues are considered to strengthen their existing cooperation.

This paper will examine the response of South Africa to the intervention in Libya drawing upon interviews with activists at the ANC's policy conference in June 2012, in depth interviews with senior ANC officials, and detailed policy analysis. Pretoria has identified the rise of the BRICS as a major development in the sphere of international relations; one that is fundamentally shifting the balance of global power and influence. While Constructivists have paid a great deal of attention to the role that the ANC's identity as a liberation movement has in shaping the 'anti-imperial' component of its foreign policy, this paper will argue that such populist rhetoric is primarily produced for domestic, ANC consumption, rather than being the primary driver of policy making. This paper will argue that South Africa's contradictory response to the UN Security Council Resolution 1973 reflects its long-term approach towards peace building and security in Africa and its attempts to reconcile Pretoria's growing power and influence on the world stage with the ANC's identity as an African liberation movement.