Hard Choices
Moral Dilemmas in Humanitarian Intervention
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Rowman & Littlefield
Published:19th Nov '98
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Since 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.
Sharply 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 *
ISBN: 9780847690312
Dimensions: 230mm x 146mm x 18mm
Weight: 435g
336 pages