The role of international actors in Libya’s transition towards peace

Abstract

In light of the latest events, Libya seems to have broken the deadlock represented by the civil war thanks to the new government of national unity which is likely to lead the country towards new crucial elections in December 2021. The result of this new ambition is the reacquisition of a certain centrality of Libya’s leverage as a point of interest in the Mediterranean region. In fact, such area is going to build a renewed stability and the European Union, especially southern Member States -among which Italy itself plays a major role-, is going to take part of this process of territorial reunification through institution-building processes. Even the UN, which has been operating in Libya to support peace-building process since the overthrow of President Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, is trying to take advantage of this window of opportunity towards a democratic transition within the country. On the one hand, European efforts are mainly concentrated on political support, security and defence joint programmes such as IRINI and EUBAM (which are the two main military/civilian missions currently ongoing on the Libyan seas and inner land), and socio-economic objectives. On the other hand, UNSMIL, the United Nation programme in Libya, is also trying to focus on the Libyan reunification through support for the preparation, drafting and adoption of a new constitution and providing technical advice and support to key Libyan institutions. Thus, the aim of this dissertation is to analyse the evolution of the country’s political, military, and economic conditions, drawing on existing literature on recent Libyan political history concerning civil wars and post-conflict reconstruction. From a methodological point of view, the work’s structure will follow a deductive method of inquiry: starting from general premises drawn from a number of academic sources and press reports, the aim is to understand whether and how international institutions intervened in Libya in response of its recent political events.