On March 17, 2011, the UN Security Council authorized with Resolution 1973 a humanitarian intervention in Libya. It referred to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) to preserve the civilians from massacres. Bruno Schoch shows in PRIF Working Paper No. 16 "Die Libyen-Intervention: Warum Deutschlands Enthaltung im Sicherheitsrat falsch war" ( "The intervention in Libya: What was wrong with Germany´s decision to abstain from voting in the UN Security Council") that Germany´s abstention sent the wrong signal with regard to peace and international order but also broke with its traditional active multilateralism on the side of its Western allies.
This PRIF Working Paper can be downloaded here.