Humanitarian intervention in contemporary conflict : a reconceptualization /

This timely addition to the literature of international law and relations provides a comprehensive, sorely needed review of the problematic concept and policy of humanitarian intervention. At the heart of the study is a compelling "reconceptualization" of humanitarian rights and classical intervention (the right of forcible self-help by states), and the evolution toward post-Cold War humanitarian intervention--"forcible" and "nonforcible" cross-border collective actions--undertaken by the UN, by states, or by nonstate actors in response to human suffering. Careful review of the theoretical literature and two succinct chapters on the comparative lessons of recent interventions in Bosnia and Somalia clarify the controversy over intervention. The authors' term "international social" conflict reveals the convergence between the roots of war and of social conflict in the ethnic and communal violence that precipitated forcible humanitarian interventions in Bosnia, Iraq, Liberia, and Rwanda. Although technical in portions, this compact work remains accessible and readable. It has no rival; it serves as an excellent textbook and indispensible guide for the general public, as well as for professional and academic audiences, eager to sort through the confusion of humanitarian intervention. W. Q. Morales University of Central Florida