| Review of: | Humanitarian intervention: ideas in action by Thomas G. Weiss |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Jim Whitman |
| Reviewed in: | International Affairs |
| Date accepted online: | 10/04/2008 |
| Published in print: | Volume 83, Issue 06, Pages 1193-1234 |
Book Reviews: International law and organization
There is an abundant literature on nearly every aspect of humanitarian intervention-historical, legal, political and military. There are detailed conceptual and philosophical works, case-studies and polemics of various stripes. Yet given the centrality of humanitarian intervention to the study of contemporary international politics, it is surprising that to date there has not been an introduction to the subject suitable for non-specialists, which is at once both accessible and authoritative. Here it is at last.
The narrative coherence and clarity of this book make it an ideal course text, but this is no light-weight survey; nor in argumentative terms is it bloodless. What is particularly welcome is that the discussion is sited in the normative context created by the International Commission on Intervention and Sovereignty's report, 'The responsibility to protect' ('R2P' in the book's shorthand). Discussion of humanitarian intervention as a prospect caught in the tensioned relationship between law, ethics and politics is eschewed; and questions of legality/illegality are not the principal contours of what the author describes as our post-R2P 'normative landscape'. Indeed, quite early on, he asserts quite directly, 'Overzealous military action for insufficient humanitarian reasons ... certainly is no danger. Rather, the real threat to international society comes from doing nothing while condoning massive suffering in the Democratic Republic of Congo, overlooking the slaughter in northern Uganda, and observing Sudan's slow-motion genocide' (p. 52).
The first three of the book's five chapters are scene-setting-broadly and in order, conceptual, historical and contemporary. The writing is crisp and direct; the detail wide-ranging but apt; and the referencing is well judged, leaving the text uncluttered. Chapter four delivers the reader to the particulars of R2P. The final chapter, entitled 'So what? Moving from rhetoric to reality', is a sober and perhaps sombre reflection on whether the responsibility to protect will make a difference in an international political ethos in which, the author says, 'the essential challenges of humanitarian intervention are not normative but operational' (p. 119). In this unflinching account of the prospects, the world is not only post-R2P, but also post-9/11. Although a number of positive beginnings are highlighted, at the end of the book we are confronted with the cold truth that 'There are limits to analysis and advocacy with neither the political will nor the operational capacity among major powers to act on the new norms' (p. 154).
The writing has a number of admirable qualities. The narrative has directness, clarity and colour even though it is rich in detail. For non-specialists, a grasp of key concepts and historical developments is not assumed, but experienced readers will not become impatient. And the reflections in the final chapter which set the abstractions of R2P against tough realities ranging from adequate air-lift capacity to the war on terror are most welcome, not only for the general purpose of bringing humanitarian intervention as a practical prospect up to date, but also for gauging the gap between the R2P norm and the current disposition of the international system.
As a key text, there is much else here to recommend, because the book's wide-ranging contextual matter will prove very instructive to those being introduced to the harder realities of international politics, whether the focus is on the international system, the use of force, the ways laws and norms are configured to the interests of states, the politics of the United Nations or the human rights prospect. And the post-R2P perspective means that it is also a worthwhile study for more experienced hands.