Libya
Expected Council Action
In December, the Security Council will hold its bimonthly briefing on the situation in Libya. Deputy Special Representative and Political Officer in Charge of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) Stephanie Koury will brief the Council on recent political, security, and humanitarian developments in the country and on the Secretary-General’s most recent report on UNSMIL.
Key Recent Developments
The political impasse in Libya continues between the UN-recognised Government of National Unity (GNU), based in Tripoli and led by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibah with advisory support from the High State Council (HSC), and the eastern-based Government of National Stability (GNS), led by Prime Minister Osama Hamad and backed by the House of Representatives (HoR) and the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) under the command of General Khalifa Haftar. The parties remain deadlocked over proposed legislation to hold national elections that would reconcile the country’s divided government. A key point of contention concerns the formation of a unified interim government to organise the elections, a move favoured by the GNS and HoR but opposed by the GNU and some segments of the HSC. The prolonged stalemate between the rival governments—which has persisted since the indefinite postponement of the 2021 elections—is a root cause of Libya’s political, security, and economic instability.
In August and September, the stand-off further escalated due to a dispute between the GNU and GNS over the leadership of the Central Bank of Libya (CBL)—the country’s sole depository for public revenues and one of the few state institutions servicing both governments. The disagreement, which affected Libya’s domestic oil production and access to foreign currencies, was eventually settled through an UNSMIL-mediated process that led to an agreement on compromise candidates to lead the bank. In a 9 October press statement, Council members welcomed the agreement, called on the parties to take steps toward establishing a unified national budget to ensure the stability of Libya’s financial system, and reiterated their support for a Libyan-led and Libyan-owned political process to enable the holding of free and fair elections “as soon as possible”. On 21 October, the HoR formally approved the CBL’s new board of directors, which held its first meeting on 10 November.
While the country’s rival governments remain deadlocked over national elections, Libya’s High National Election Commission (HNEC) organised the first round of municipal elections on 16 November. Polls were held in 58 municipalities, with voter participation reaching 74 percent. In remarks that day at HNEC’s headquarters, Koury described the elections—which were the first since 2014 to be held simultaneously across the western and eastern parts of the country—as a “significant milestone in Libya’s journey toward democracy” that “showcases the potential for a peaceful transition of power”. The second round of elections for an additional 58 municipalities is expected to take place in January 2025.
Regarding Libya’s security situation, the 2020 ceasefire agreement continues to hold, although recent political tensions raised concern about the risk of violent confrontation. Notably, during the CBL stand-off, rival militias in Tripoli mobilised in support of both sides of the dispute, prompting both UNSMIL and Security Council members to issue press statements, dated 22 August and 28 August, respectively, calling on Libyan leaders to refrain from the use or threat of force, exercise restraint, and de-escalate tensions. During a 17 October meeting of the Security Working Group of the International Follow-Up Committee of the Berlin Process—the UN-supported negotiation track that facilitated the 2020 ceasefire agreement—Koury proposed establishing a “formal joint deconfliction/communication mechanism within Libya” to “help to ensure that ‘misunderstandings’ do not threaten peace, security and lives”.
On 31 October, the Council unanimously adopted resolution 2755, extending UNSMIL’s mandate for three months, until 31 January 2025, with a “further automatic extension” of an additional nine months, until 31 October 2025, if a new Special Representative and head of UNSMIL has been appointed by 31 January 2025. The leadership position has been vacant since May when then-Special Representative Abdoulaye Bathily stepped down. (For more information on resolution 2755, see our 30 October What’s In Blue story.)
On 19 November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor, Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, gave his biannual briefing to the Council on the ICC’s Libya-related activities. The meeting followed the court’s 4 October decision to unseal arrest warrants for six individuals allegedly affiliated with the Al Kaniyat militia, which controlled Tarhuna—a city of approximately 150,000 people located 90 kilometres southeast of Tripoli—from 2015 to 2020. In his briefing, which he delivered virtually from Libya, Khan requested the support of national authorities and the international community in executing the arrest warrants to bring the charged individuals to justice and indicated that his office was preparing to file warrants for additional individuals before his next Council briefing in May 2025. He also detailed progress that the court has made on its roadmap to transition from the investigative phase to the judicial phase of its activities in the country by the end of 2025.
Key Issues and Options
Supporting political momentum towards national elections to unify Libya’s divided governments remains the key issue for the Security Council. In this context, an important objective for the Council is to help foster common political ground between the country’s rival governments to reach an inclusive agreement on electoral laws, including the possible establishment of a unified interim government to organise the elections.
Council members could consider holding a closed Arria-formula meeting with representatives of the rival governments for a frank discussion on potential ways to break the longstanding political impasse.
Another option in the future would be for the Council to undertake a visiting mission to Libya to get a better understanding of the situation on the ground to inform its decision-making. The Council has not visited Libya in the post-Cold War period, despite the Council’s significant engagement on this file in recent decades and the deployment of UNSMIL in the country since 2011.
Another issue for the Council is the appointment of a new Special Representative and Head of UNSMIL. Filling this position is an important condition for maintaining the credibility and effectiveness of the UN’s mediation role in Libya, in part because resolution 2755 made a full one-year renewal of the mission’s mandate contingent on the appointment. Council members have urged the Secretary-General to take swift action on this issue, although positions diverge on the appropriate candidate for the position, which has delayed the appointment process.
Council Dynamics
Council members remain united on the need for a Libyan-led, inclusive political process resulting in elections that will help to restore political, security, and economic stability to the country. They also remain broadly supportive of the UN’s mediation role towards this end.
The recent extension of UNSMIL’s mandate in the absence of a Special Representative rekindled older disagreements, however. When former Special Envoy Ján Kubiš resigned in November 2021, it took nearly a year to identify a successor, eventually leading to Bathily’s appointment in September 2022. (Resolution 2629 of 29 April 2022 changed UNSMIL’s leadership position from a Special Envoy to a Special Representative.) During this impasse, between September 2021 and July 2022, the Council renewed UNSMIL’s mandate five times through short-term extensions, in part because Russia opposed a regular one-year renewal in the absence of appointed mission leadership. During negotiations on this year’s renewal under similar circumstances, Russia again opposed a one-year extension, referring to the previous short-term extensions as precedent. This resulted in the compromise solution whereby resolution 2755 renewed the mandate for a three-month period that may be automatically extended by an additional nine months upon the appointment of a new Special Representative.
More broadly, geopolitical tensions also influence Council dynamics with respect to Libya. The US and other Western members remain concerned about Russia’s growing presence in the eastern part of the country that is under Haftar’s control, while Russia routinely blames Libya’s current instability on the NATO-led military intervention in 2011 and accuses Western countries of seeking to exploit Libya’s oil reserves for economic gain.
The UK is the penholder on Libya.
| Security Council Resolution | |
| 31 October 2024S/RES/2755 | This resolution extended UNSMIL’s mandate for three months, until 31 January 2025, with a “further automatic extension” of an additional nine months, until 31 October 2025, if a new Special Representative and Head of UNSMIL has been appointed by 31 January 2025. |
| Security Council Press Statement | |
| 9 October 2024SC/15848 | This press statement welcomed the agreement reached between Libyan actors on the Central Bank of Libya and its endorsement by the House of Representatives and High State Council. |
