The whirlwind process by which the international community, ranging from the Arab League, European Union, and, most critically, the United Nations, laid the legal foundations approving the military intervention in Libya is nothing short of breathtaking. The adoption of Resolution 1973 on March 17 by the United Nations Security Council (which notably was not vetoed by either Russia or China), has invoked the particularly difficult legal territory under the Responsibility to Protect, raising some unprecedented debates of what it might entail for the future. An interesting discussion is already underway over at the legal blog Opinio Juris, questioning whether or not Resolution 1973 extends the legal right to personally target Col. Gaddafi (it does), and the Constitutional Law aspects in the U.S. (which would prohibit such targeting). There’s a lot of focus on the language in paragraph 4 of the Resolution, specifically the authorization of “all necessary measures” to protect not just civilians, but civilian-populated areas.