An analysis of the responsibility to protect: The Arab perception of the NATO intervention in Libya as represented in Al-Jazeera and Asharq Al-Awsat

This thesis aims to find out the perception of the Responsibility to Protect, which has its origins in just war and humanitarian intervention concepts, in the Arab world, which is known as its one of the prominent regions of its application. To this end, the study examines the Arab media coverage of the concept of Responsibility to Protect. Responsibility to Protect was first put forward by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty in 2001, in en effort to change the objective of the debate on humanitarian intervention from states' right to intervene to states' responsibility to protect people from atrocity crimes. The concept was accepted by the heads of states in United Nations World Summit in 2005. The World Summit Outcome Document listed four crimes that call for international responsibility: genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansig and crimes against humanity. If states fail to protect their people from these crimes, the international community, acting through the United Nations Security Council, would assume the responsibility. NATO's intervention in Libya in 2011 is the first intervention authorized by the United Nations Security Council with reference to the Responsibility to Protect. In this study, the Arab perception is examined through columns and commentaries published in two prominent newspapers of the region, Al-Jazeera ve Asharq Al-Awsat, about Libya intervention. The study reveals Arab suspicion towards Responsibility to Protect and international military interventions. Arab commentators do not consider consider interventions justified under the Responsibility to Protect to be desirable, but may consider them permissible due to the limited military capacities of states in the region, and with a number of cautionary criteria on issues such as deciding whether to intervene, scope and implementation, and post-intervention responsibilities of the intervener. Key words: Responsibility to Protect, NATO, Libya, military intervention, Arab media.