For nearly fifteen years, Libya has served as the world’s most expensive and repetitive political laboratory. Since the 2011 NATO intervention and the subsequent fall of Muammar Gaddafi, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) has operated through a revolving door of mandates and leadership. With the January 2025 appointment of Hanna Tetteh—the eleventh envoy to take up the mantle—each new leadership arrives promising a definitive roadmap to stability, only to find themselves lost in the same familiar cul-de-sac. What was designed as a transitional bridge to a sovereign, democratic state has instead institutionalised a state of ‘frozen chaos,’ where the process itself has become a substitute for progress.

In this laboratory, the “solutions” concocted in Geneva, Skhirat, Morocco or Tunis often ignore the volatile chemistry of the ground. The result is a country suspended in a permanent interim—a precarious equilibrium where rival administrations, fragmented security apparatuses, and foreign interests have found a comfortable, if cynical, status quo. As UNSMIL grapples with the latest anxieties surrounding constitutional divisions, the question is no longer when the transition will end, but whether the international community has inadvertently designed a system that thrives on never reaching a destination.

In this geopolitical laboratory, the most recent—and perhaps most damaging—experiment is the UN-facilitated ‘Structured Dialogue.’ Launched in late 2025 and continuing so far, the initiative was ostensibly designed to foster a broad-based ‘national vision’ that would pave the road to national elections: both legislative and presidential. Instead, it has served as a catalyst for deeper institutional fragmentation. By bypassing established legal frameworks in favour of an amorphous ‘consultative’ approach, the dialogue inadvertently opened a Pandora’s box regarding the country’s legal foundations.........

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