Permanent Settlement in Libya between Humanitarian Coercion and Demographic Engineering The Sovereignty Dilemma in a Fragile State

Abstract

This study examines the phenomenon of permanent settlement in Libya as an issue at the intersection of humanitarian considerations and demographic, political, and security transformations, amid the fragility of state institutions and the multiplicity of centers of power. The problem arises from the overlap between hosting migrants and displaced persons for temporary humanitarian reasons and the transformation of the presence of certain groups into long-term settlement patterns that may pose challenges to the management of population dynamics and national sovereignty. In this context, Libya emerges as both a transit country and a potential destination for migrants arriving from sub-Saharan Africa, as well as a setting for receiving waves of displacement resulting from regional and local conflicts.

Permanent settlement raises a complex problem concerning the Libyan state's capacity to regulate its population and migration policies, particularly given the weakness of central institutions and the existence of multiple authorities and informal actors. It also raises questions about the boundary between humanitarian coercion, when individuals remain because safe alternatives are unavailable, and demographic engineering, when demographic transformations are deliberately or indirectly used to reshape social, geographic, and political balances.

The study seeks to analyze the impact of these transformations on the concept of sovereignty by examining the state's capacity to control its borders, population, and demographic policies, while taking into account its international obligations regarding the rights of migrants and refugees. It concludes that addressing this phenomenon requires a balanced approach that does not reduce it to a security issue, but rather links human protection, the strengthening of state institutions, migration regulation, and the prevention of exploiting institutional fragility to bring about opaque or coercive demographic changes.