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Shame In The Security Council, Saira Mohamed

Saira Mohamed

The decision of the U.N. Security Council to authorize military intervention in Libya in 2011 was greeted as a triumph of the power of shame in international law. At last, it seemed, the usually clashing members of the Council came together, recognizing the embarrassment they would suffer if they stood by in the face of an imminent slaughter of civilians, and atoning for their sins of inaction in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur. The accuracy of this redemption narrative, however, is open to question. Shaming—an expression of moral criticism intended to induce a change in some state practice—is assumed by scholars …