Will Libya’s judicial divorce bury the UNSMIL roadmap for good?

The ink on UNSMIL’s latest political roadmap is barely dry, yet the United Nations mission is already sounding the alarm over a “constitutional division” that threatens to tear the country’s last unified institution—the judiciary—asunder. The recent escalations between Tripoli and Benghazi over the Supreme Court’s legitimacy are not merely technical disagreements; they are a calculated veto against the electoral process.

However, the international community’s response remains stagnant. Major foreign players in the Libyan file appear to have overlooked the gravity of this judicial collapse, their attention diverted by the latest twists of Trumpism and a shifting global order. By allowing the UN sponsored Structured Dialogue to be threatened by legal hurdles, these powers are once again watching as Libya’s transition is buried under a mountain of “constitutional amendments” that lead nowhere.

Until this past month, Libya had managed a fragile, almost miraculous, functional unity despite its deep political fissures. While the country has long been bifurcated between a UN-recognized government in Tripoli and an unrecognized parallel administration in Benghazi, it remained anchored by four supposedly independent and unified institutions: The Central Bank, the judiciary, the High National Elections Commission (HNEC), and the National Oil Corporation (NOC), along with a shared, albeit strained, framework for law enforcement—applicable mostly to the ordinary but excepts the elite. These pillars allowed the daily life of the state to bypass the political theatre. However, as 2026 begins, this technical unity is collapsing—at least threatened. The “endless legal battles” currently erupting over the control of the Supreme Court and the management of the elections commission (HNEC) are now threatening to engulf the NOC as well.

This institutional divorce is the direct backdrop to the UN’s latest attempt at mediation—the “Structured Dialogue”—which was launched with great fanfare in mid-December. While dialogue members, under the auspices of UNSMIL, discuss governance tracks and human rights in Tripoli hotels, the legislative bodies in the East and West are busy dismantling the very foundations upon which any future government would sit. In a blatant challenge to the electoral status quo, the High Council of State moved unilaterally this month to elect a new head for the HNEC—a move the UN explicitly warned against as an “escalatory measure.” Meanwhile, the Parliament in Eastern Libya has moved to consolidate its power by activating a rival Supreme Constitutional Court in Benghazi, effectively stripping the Tripoli-based judiciary of its oversight. Both institutions have placed a legal landmine under the UN’s roadmap. Consequently, the dialogue is not just staling; it is becoming irrelevant. When the highest court in the land is itself a subject of dispute, any “agreement” reached through international mediation becomes a legal phantom, unable to be enforced and destined to be struck down by whichever side feels disadvantaged by the results.

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This fragmentation of the judiciary is no longer a looming threat; it is a solidified reality that has effectively paralyzed the state’s ability to function. If this institutional divorce holds—and all indications so far suggest it will—Libya has entered a phase where “the law” exists only as a local instrument of power rather than a national standard. In previous years, the Supreme Court served as a final, albeit fragile, safety valve to de-escalate political feuds. Today, that valve has been dismantled. By activating a rival Constitutional Court in Benghazi, the Eastern authorities have created a “judicial shield” that renders any Tripoli-based decree or UN-mediated agreement dead on arrival. UNSMIL’s alarm over this constitutional division highlights the central paradox of the current “Structured Dialogue”: the international community is attempting to negotiate a roadmap for a country that no longer possesses a single, undisputed venue to settle its legal disputes. The “endless legal battle” is thus a war of attrition where the gavel is as divisive as the gun, ensuring that any progress toward elections is checked by a permanent, self-inflicted constitutional stalemate.

The international response to this institutional hollowing has been predictably toothless, characterized by a mix of rhetorical “deep concern” and a refusal to confront the reality that the old mediation tools are no longer fit for purpose. While UNSMIL has recently welcomed the formation of a mediation committee of legal experts to salvage judicial unity, such gestures feel increasingly like cosmetic fixes for a structural collapse. The “Structured Dialogue” continues in Tripoli hotels, but its participants are negotiating for a state that is being dismantled in the courtrooms of Benghazi and the boardrooms of the HNEC. By treating the Eastern and Western manoeuvres as “escalatory measures” rather than a fundamental rejection of last year’s roadmap, the UN risks legitimizing a process that has no enforceable end. As 2026 progresses, the danger is that the international community—weary of the Libyan file—will accept this judicial partition as a “stable” alternative to open warfare, inadvertently cementing a permanent division under the guise of legal complexity.

This institutional drift is nowhere more evident than in the recent sessions of the “Structured Dialogue” held in Tripoli. While UNSMIL celebrated the conclusion of the Governance Track meetings on 15th January 2026, as a “milestone of inclusivity,” the reality on the ground suggests a widening gulf between rhetoric and results. These forums, populated by hand-picked representatives and technocrats, are tasked with drafting “recommendations” for a political settlement that the main power brokers have already bypassed. While participants discuss the theoretical mandate of a unified government within the safe confines of hotel ballrooms, the High National Elections Commission (HNEC) is being pulled into the same gravitational well of division that consumed the Central Bank. By forcing a “restructuring” of the HNEC board under the guise of transparency, the rival chambers are not preparing for an election; they are effectively dismantling the last neutral technical body capable of holding one.

The legal partition reached a fever pitch in early January 2026, when the dispute over the constitutional judiciary took center stage. Despite UNSMIL’s “welcome” of mediation efforts by legal experts the fundamental fracture remains unaddressed: the existence of two rival Supreme Court entities. The Benghazi-based court’s recent assertions of legitimacy serve as a formal rejection of the High Council of State’s (HCS) claims to co-equal power, providing a “constitutional” shield for the East’s secessionist administrative manoeuvres. We are no longer facing a simple disagreement over laws, but a terminal conflict between two irreconcilable legal universes. For the Libyan citizen, the result is a state where “legality” is determined by geography, and “justice” is whatever the local court—and the militia protecting it—decrees.

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