By mid-2019, the UN’s efforts to advance a peace process in Libya were stuck. As Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), Ghassan Salamé had tried to work ‘from the inside out’. This meant prioritising engagement with a broad swathe of Libyans in preparation for an inclusive national conference to be held in April 2019. But an assault on the capital Tripoli by the renegade General Khalifa Haftar just days before it was to take place returned Libya to open conflict and left the UN plan in tatters. The attack also exposed both deep divisions in the UN Security Council and significant military and other interference in Libya by regional and other states.
To address the particular challenge of mediating a highly internationalised conflict in a context in which the usual rounds of engagement with ambassadors and travel to capitals was not having traction, in July 2019 Salamé proposed a high-level meeting to bring ‘concerned countries’ together and create the space for the re-launching of a Libyan process. Germany appeared a logical partner. It was perceived as neutral by the Libyans, was an elected member of the Security Council with close ties to the regional actors, and in Chancellor Angela Merkel had a leader able to command deep personal authority.
As Christian Buck, a senior German official who, with Salamé’s deputy Stephanie Williams, would assume responsibility for the conference’s preparation, would recall in an interview, the Chancellor took particular interest in Libya and, encouraged by her foreign policy adviser Jan Hecker, a critical advocate of the initiative, agreed to meet with Salamé in August. He asked whether she would be willing to ‘help shield the Libyan process against influences from outside’ by hosting a conference with leaders of countries including the five permanent members of the Security Council and others engaged in the conflict (these would eventually include Algeria, Egypt, Italy, the Republic of the Congo, Türkiye, and the United Arab Emirates as well as representatives of the African Union, the European Union and the League of Arab States). Merkel responded positively, but with some caution: she would not commit to holding the conference until it became clear that it would achieve something worthwhile.
Over the following months, Germany and the UN convened six preparatory meetings to advance the drafting of a 55-point outcome document. The states involved committed to refrain from interfering in Libya’s armed conflict and to support UN efforts to return to an intra-Libyan political process. During the meetings the officials were, one recalled, ‘unusually focused’ by the knowledge that ‘his or her president or head of state’ would be in the room. Many asked when the conference would take place, but it was not until late December that Merkel gave the green light.
On 19 January 2020, the Berlin International Conference, co-chaired by Merkel and Secretary-General António Guterres, brought together an extraordinary gathering of world leaders (Presidents Donald Trump of the United States and Xi Jingping of China were among the very few heads of state not to attend in person). Its conclusions addressed a ceasefire, the arms embargo, a return to the political process, security sector reform, economic and financial reform, respect for international humanitarian law and human rights, and a range of mechanisms, outlined in an annex, to secure follow up.
Some of the Conference’s conclusions were, perhaps inevitably, quickly ignored or violated. But it also had significant impact. In its high-level political investment, close collaboration between the UN and an engaged member state, and painstaking preparation, the Berlin International Conference stands as an innovative example of how to bring outside actors to address an internationalised internal conflict and create the space necessary for national actors to address their own challenges and priorities. It established four international working groups and, critically, launched three intra-Libyan tracks on the economic, political and security aspects of the conflict, facilitated by the UN. Over the following year these would yield a durable ceasefire, a roadmap towards elections, and terms for the formation of a government of national unity.
A second Berlin International Conference would be held in June 2021, with Libyan participants present and wider representation from the region. Participants reaffirmed the conclusions of the first conference and agreed – albeit with a ‘reservation’ expressed by Türkiye – that ‘all foreign forces and mercenaries need to be withdrawn from Libya without delay’. Unfortunately, however, cracks in the Libyan process had appeared. Authorities within what had been conceived as an interim government began to create obstacles to the holding of elections, and General Haftar remained in control of the east of the country. Elections planned for December 2021 did not take place, and, as of the time of writing, the unifying of national institutions in Libya remains an elusive goal.
