On 26 February 2011 the UN Security Council adopted its first resolution concerning the situation in Libya.1 In addition to imposing sanctions and an arms embargo against Gaddafi’s regime, the Council referred the situation to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and, in one of the introductory clauses outlining some of the normative conclusions drawn from the facts, recalled ‘the Libyan authorities’ responsibility to protect its population’. The paradox of simultaneously implying that crimes against humanity had already taken place (the ICC referral) and reminding those responsible of their responsibility not to commit them is of course obvious, and gives rise to a commonly drawn distinction between the ICC and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) concept. If the ICC referral (and other operative paragraphs of the resolution) is a case of hard, enforceable law, the stuff of international lawyers and conventional legal analysis, then the reference to R2P appears an inconsequential rhetorical move devoid of clear legal effect. And, more generally, the concept’s impact on the high politics that produced resolutions 1970 and 1973 (the latter authorizing use of force to protect Libyan civilians) seems either marginal or difficult to grasp.