Humanitarian Intervention: Past, Present and Future
| Author | Aidan Hehir |
| Published date | 01 September 2008 |
| Date | 01 September 2008 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-9302.2008.00162.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Humanitarian Intervention: Past, Present
and Future
Aidan Hehir
University of Westminster
Bellamy, A. (2006) Just Wars:From Cicero to Iraq. London: Polity Press.
Weiss,T.(2007) Humanitarian Intervention. London: Polity Press.
Reed, C. and Ryall, D. (eds) (2007) The Pr ice of Peace: JustWars in the Twenty-First Century.Cambr idge:
Cambridge University Press.
Seybolt,T. B. (2007) Humanitarian Military Intervention: The Conditions for Success and Failure. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Heazle, M. and Islam, I. (eds) (2007) Beyond the Iraq War: The Promises, Pitfalls and Perils of External
Interventionism. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
The notion that human beings matter more than sovereignty radiated,
albeit briefly,across the inter national political horizon until the United
States tied down its military in Afghanistan and Iraq.The political will
as well as the operational capacity for humanitarian intervention has
evaporated (Weiss, 2007, p. 119).
Humanitarian intervention is, as Alex Bellamy notes (2006, p. 12),‘one of the
most complex and hotly contested issues in contemporary world politics’.
Current debate on this issue continues to be shaped by two particularly seminal
interventions: Operation Allied Force in Kosovo (1999) and Operation Iraqi
Freedom (2003).Although both inter ventions share key similarities – both were
led by the US and UK, undertaken without Security Council author isation and
prosecuted via legally dubious means – the international and academic responses
to each have been dramatically different.
While Operation Allied Force seemed to affirm the efficacy of the ‘new humani-
tarians’ who emerged in force in the 1990s calling for proactive human rights
enforcement, the invasion of Iraq suggested something of a regression to amoral
statecraft and the cynical manipulation of ethical advocacy. Commentators con-
trasted the ‘reckless’ intervention in Iraq and its architects ‘motivated by the
selective and self-interested pursuit of their own geopolitical goals’ with the
‘progressive’and ‘necessary’ intervention in Kosovo ordered by those who ‘aspire
to a world order based on the universal and disinterested pursuit of justice’ (Clark,
2003). The books reviewed here engage with the many issues raised by both
interventions and, reflecting the broader debate, offer contrasting perspectives on
each.
POLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW: 2008 VOL 6, 327–339
© 2008The Author.Jour nal compilation © 2008 Political StudiesAssociation
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