Review: No Easy Fix
| Author | Mischa Evan Kaplan |
| Published date | 01 December 2009 |
| Date | 01 December 2009 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070200906400424 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
| Reviews |
| 1164 | Autumn 2009 | International Journal |
NO EASY FIX
Global Responses to Int ernal Wars and Crimes against Human ity
Patricia Marchak
Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008. 376pp,
$34.95 cloth
ISBN 978-0773533684
Dealing with sovereign regimes that have perpetrated crimes against the
human rights of their own citizens is a perennial problem for the
international community, that nebulous and faceless force. Related to this
issue, a nd perhaps the real crux of the problem, is the fact that countries
remain at odds over the interrelated questions of state sovereignty and the
legitimacy of foreign intervention. The American invasion of Iraq in 2003—
which the White House initially justified on the grounds of international
security and, subsequently, by appealing to humanitarian considerations—
raised exactly these concerns and demonstrated how elusive a global
consensus on these issues rem ains. The ongoing conflict in Darfur poses
similar problems. In western countries, public pressure for intervention to
stop what many consider to be a genocide highlights the tension between
state sovereignty and humanitarian principles. The Sudanese government’s
refusal to recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court—which
has attempted to bring to trial various members of the regime—casts doubt
on the ability of international organiza tions to discharge their stated
responsibilities.
Patricia Marchak’s book attempts to make sense of these issues. It is the
valiant effort of a gifted and erudite scholar. If her conclusion is sobering, the
blame hardly lies with her. The weight of her subject hangs heavily over every
page. As Marchak herself admits, she is skeptical about the international
community’s ability to uphold an effective system of global justice.
“Humanitarian int ervention,” she notes, “may be an idea whose time has
arrived, but it has arrived in the context of a failing state system, and the one
organization that has the moral authority to address the problems lacks the
military capacity and the political will to do so” (38). Concepts such as the
responsibility to protect, a subject that forms the basis for one of the book’s
most convincing chapters,are, Marchak notes, often strong in sentiment but
weak in execution. A further issue contributing to the author’s doubts is the
ability of international law—a western-centric and western-oriented
concept—to develop into a legitimate and universally-accepted legal regime.
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