ABSTRACT
When Libya was faced with United Nations (UN) sanctions in the early 1990s, it was a relatively weak state in a confrontation with a relatively unified international community. Lacking coercive resources or powerful allies, the Libyan strategy to undermine the sanctions rested on appropriating the symbols and norms of liberal internationalism and deploying them in a counterattack. Because the proponents of the sanctions had based their case in the Security Council on the norms of due process, respect for international organizations (las), and peaceful dispute settlement, international support for the sanctions was sensitive to new interpretations of these principles. Libya's strategy took advantage of this fact and, by consistently pressing a reinterpretation of liberal internationalism and of the norms of the Council, it was able to delegitimize the sanctions and threaten the legitimacy
of the Council itself. Quite surprisingly for an Arab nationalist dictatorship, Libya publicly championed liberal internationalism and sought to reinforce the legitimacy of international law and organizations. Libya's tactic created a dilemma for the prosanctions states: continuing to insist on the sanctions regime in the face of rising defections by UN members increased the risk to the credibility of the Council.! Faced with a trade-off between defending sanctions and defending the Council itself, the United States and United Kingdom (UK) eventually agreed to a compromise in 1998 that they had earlier rejected. Their interest in preserving the power of the Council won out over their desire to maintain a hard line against Libya.
