Who Gave NATO The Right To kill Gaddafi???

The UN was founded as a way to avoid war. War between states. The idea was that states should be allowed to manage their own domestic business but not to interfere in other states business. Thus would peace be accuired.

This was after WWII so everyone knew that sometimes some states went bananas and started to kill its citizens. This was seen as regrettable but to prevent someone like Stalin from killing citizens of the own country was considered unnecessarily dangerous. If people like Stalin was not allowed to kill innocent people they might start a nuclear war that would terminate humanity. Better to let each state minding their own business.

R2P

The Rwandan genocide in 1994 was a chock to the world. Millions of people killed. The world did nothing. The western world was blamed. Blamed for having caucee the genocide. Blamed for doing nothing. (White people are always blamed for everything)

Exactly how white people had caused the genocide was unclear but that European states hsd done nothing was very clear. This was actually according to international law. Each state should be left alone to mind their own business.

The UN started to analyze international law. Something was missing. Something that would allowed other states to prevent a genocide. Something that would have made it clear that other states, sometimes, have a duty to interfere to prevent a genocide.

The solution was the Responsibility to protect - R2P. This was a change in international law that was supposted to prevent another Rwandan styled genocide from happening.

Responsibility to protect Libya

When the uprising started Gaddafi made it very clear that he intended to solve the problem by genocide. The western states, who were accused of causing the Rwandan genocide by doing nothing were now challenged. They had to do something. What could they do?

1. A full scale invasion followed by an occupation. The result would have been a 19th century colonialization of Libya
2. Just prevent Gaddafi from commiting a genocide.

The choise was number 2. The result that the western states are blamed to have caused the anarchy of Libya.