Description
Book SynopsisSince Somalia, the international community has found itself changing its view of humanitarian intervention. Operations designed to alleviate suffering and achieve peace sometimes produce damaging results. The United Nations, nongovernmental organizations, military and civilian agencies alike find themselves in the midst of confusion and weakness where what they seek are clarity and stability. Competing needs, rights, and values can obscure even the best international efforts to quell violence and assuage crises of poverty. More attention must be paid to the complexity of issues and moral dilemmas involved. This volume of original essays by international policy leaders, practitioners, and scholars brings together insights into the conflicting moral pressures present in different kinds of interventions ranging from Rwanda and Somalia to Haiti, Cambodia, and Bosnia. From their various cultural and professional perspectives the authors cover issues of human rights, sanctions, arms trade, refugees, HIV, and the media. Together they make the case that, although there are no easy answers, moral reflection and content can improve the quality of decisionmaking and intervention in internal conflicts. Published under the auspices of The International Committee of the Red Cross.
Trade ReviewSharply worded statements of uncomfortable truths. -- Eliot A. Cohen * Foreign Affairs *
A short chapter by the Canadian General Romeo Dallaire in Hard Choices must qualify as the most gripping account of peacekeeping ever written. -- Alex de Waal * London Review Of Books, November, 1999 *
The book is not about Kosovo per se, but its themes and illustrations are pertinent to our current turmoil in the Balkans. One obvious point is that the consequences of inaction can be horrible. * The Boston Sunday Globe, April 18, 1999 *
Every chapter in this timely book is worth reading. -- Larman C. Wilson, American University * Perspectives on Political Science *
The volume is the most comprehensive available about the view of the international community on morally sound and policy-prudent intervention. . . . Recommended for upper-division undergraduate, graduate, and faculty collections. * CHOICE *
Each of these essays shows a different aspect of the dilemmas confronting humanitarian workers as well as the multiple and often incompatible tasks that fall within the range of humanitarian intervention. -- Nicholas Xenos, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
This volume illuminates what may be the challenge for the next decade, century, and millennium: closing the gap between lofty rethoric and the reality in the field. -- Diane Paul, Human Rights Watch, Brown University Humanitarianism and War Project, Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights * International Politics *
The book is a solid contribution to the ever-growing debate on humanitarian intervention. * Journal of Peace Research *
Hard Choices is a remarkably franc attempt to consider the consequences and shortcomings of humanitarian intervention. * International Review Of The Red Cross *
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Foreword Chapter 2 Introduction Chapter 3 From War and Peace to Violence and Intervention: Permanent Moral Dilemmas under Changing Political and Technological Conditions Chapter 4 Military Intervention and National Sovereignty: Recasting the Relationship Chapter 5 Peacekeeping, Military Intervention, and National Sovereignty in Internal Armed Conflict Chapter 6 The End of Innocence: Rwanda 1994 Chapter 7 Mixed Intervention in Somalia and the Great Lakes: Culture, Neutrality, and the Military Chapter 8 Military-Humanitarian Ambiguities in Haiti Chapter 9 Weaving a New Society in Cambodia: The Story of Monath Chapter 10 "You Save My Life Today, But for What Tomorrow?" Some Moral Dilemmas of Humanitarian Aid Chapter 11 Hard Choices after Genocide: Human Rights and Political Failures in Rwanda Chapter 12 Refugee Camps, Population Transfers, and NGOs Chapter 13 Bringing War Criminals to Justice during an Ongoing War Chapter 14 Moral Reconstruction in the Wake of Human Rights Violations and War Crimes Chapter 15 The Morality of Sanctions Chapter 16 Moving in Vicious Circles: The Moral Dilemmas of Arms Transfers and Weapons Manufacture Chapter 17 A Future, If One Is Still Alive: The Challenge of the HIV Epidemic Chapter 18 The Stories We Tell: Television and Humanitarian Aid Chapter 19 Index
