Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention in the 21st Century

Since the end of the Cold War, humanitarian interventions have continued to evolve and respond to a wide range of political crises. These insightful essays focus on the challenges associated with interventions when facing conflict and human rights violations, unmitigated systematic violence, state re-building, human mobility and dislocation. Each chapter is linked to the rest through three defining themes that permeate the book: the evolution of humanitarian interventions in a global era; the limits of sovereignty and the ethics of interventions; and the politics of post-intervention: (re)-building and humanitarian engagement. The authors incorporate a variety of case studies including Kosovo, Timor-Leste, Syria, Libya and Iraq, and examine the complexity of interventions across their different dimensions, including relevant doctrines such as R2P, ‘Use of Force’ and Human Security.

Table of Contents:
Abbreviations/Acronyms ForewordShirley V. Scott IntroductionAiden Warren and Damian Grenfell Part I: The Evolution of Humanitarian Interventions in a Global Era 1: Rethinking Humanitarian-Military Interventions: Violence and Modernity in an Age of GlobalizationDamian Grenfell 2: Peace in the Twenty-First Century: States, Capital and InstitutionsOliver P. Richmond 3: The Evolution of Economic Interventions and the Violence of International Accountability over the longue duréeBronwen Everill 4: Changing Patterns of Social Connection across Interventions: Unravelling Aberrant GlobalizationPaul Battersby Part II: The Limits of Sovereignty and the Ethics of Interventions 5: A Framework for Reimagining Order and Justice: Transitions in Violence and Interventions in a Global EraMichaelene Cox 6: Humanitarian Intervention? Responding Ethically to Globalizing Violence in the Age of Mediated ViolencePaul James 7: 'Manifestly Failing' and 'Unwilling or Unable' as Intervention Formulas: A Critical AssessmentIvi Bode 8: Interventions and the Limits of the Responsibility to Protect: Regional Organizations and the Global SouthJoseph Hongoh 9: Regulating the Abstraction of Violence: Interventions and the Deployment of New Technologies GloballyAiden Warren Part III: The Politics of Post-Intervention: (re)-building and humanitarian engagement 10: (Re)Building the world: Local Agency and Human Security in the New MillenniumTrudy Fraser 11: Who Rebuilds? Local Roles in Rebuilding Shattered SocietiesSusan H. Allen 12: Transforming the Discourse of Civil-Military Interaction for Humanitarian EnvironmentsVandra Harris Bibliography

About the Author :
Aiden Warren is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University in Melbourne, Australia. He is a Fulbright Scholar and author of Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Search for Global Security (Rowman Littlefield) and The Obama Administration’s Nuclear Weapon Strategy: The Promises of Prague (Routledge). Dr Warren is also co-editor of Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention in the 21st Century (Edinburgh University Press) and Nuclear Modernization in the 21st Century (Routledge). He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy (IISTP), George Washington University, and Asia-Pacific Fellow at James Martin Center for Non-proliferation, Washington DC. Damian Grenfell is Director of the Centre for Global Research, RMIT, Australia. He is the lead editor of Rethinking Insecurity, War and Violence: Beyond Savage Globalization? (Routledge, 2008).

Review :
This thought-provoking volume makes a significant contribution to debates about intervention. Eschewing conventional approaches to the subject, the book tackles some key issues, from the evolution of humanitarian interventions, the limitations of sovereignty, through to the politics of post-intervention (re)-building and humanitarianism. Important case studies from Timor-Leste to Syria and Libya are also included. This timely book will be of interest to both scholarly and policy audiences. This rigorous multi-disciplinary volume redefines interventions as attempts at social transformation related to different domains (economic, social, military, humanitarian) and actors (local, national, regional, international), resulting in a much appreciated call to scholars, students and practitioners to study and think of interventions as complex, inter-related, multi-faceted, multi-level political and social processes. The emphasis on local contexts, actors, institutions and power relations as defining factors for understanding the dynamics and outcomes of interventions makes this book a valuable contribution to the literature. An invaluable series of studies, rich in theory and varied in substance, that admirably depict the multiple complexities of interventionary diplomacy as it has unfolded in recent decades. Indispensable reading for all those concerned with the shifting parameters of world politics.