This text takes a critical look at the way in which human rights issues have been brought to the fore in international affairs. For ten years, the language of international intervention has been transformed. The UN and Nato's new policy of interventionism - as shown in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor - has been hailed as "humanitarian action", part of a new "ethical" approach to foreign policy. The establisment of an international criminal court and ad hoc tribunals for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia reflect this shift in perception, which has been welcomed by world leaders, government critics and even NGOs. David Chandler offers a rigorous critique of this apparently benign shift in international relations to reveal the worrying political implications of a new human rights discourse.
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'Chandler deftly unpicks the hypocrisy and double standards behind our "ethical" bombing in the balkans and Asia.' Boyd Tonkin, The Independent 'Chandler's book is thorough and relentless in its critique of human rights consensus.' --Jon Holbrook - Spiked
About the Author
David Chandler is currently a Research Fellow at Leeds Metropolitan University. He is the author of Bosnia: Faking Democracy After Dayton (Pluto Press, 1999).
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
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Superb demolition of warmongering
18 Oct 2002
By William Podmore
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
This outstanding book shows how British and US governments use the anti-democratic human rights ideology to boost their image and support foreign interventions. Chandler proves that attacks on states' sovereignty are also attacks on democracy.
A government's duty is to its own people, where there is accountability: only within a state can a people control its government and govern its affairs. But now a liberal elite of `the great and the good', a `global civil society, independent of states and state boundaries', appoint themselves guardians of others' rights, as against the rest of us, mere `vested interests'.
`Our betters' redefine political matters as moral or legal, to be decided not in public by the people, but behind closed doors by World Bank or European Central Bank, by Royal Commissions, judicial reviews, task forces or think tanks, and at work by ethics committees and Quality Assurance groups.
Abroad, Blair uses a `people-centred' approach of rights enforcement, which trumps peacemaking and negotiations. `Morality' and `international justice' trump law and destroy sovereignty. ...
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intro to International Studies
1 April 2004
By A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
This book has three themes in it: Universality, Empowerment, and Human-Centered Approach. All these themes deal with the human rights approach to foreign relations and intervention. Ideally, the the concept of human rights sounds okay and progressive. However, Chandler reveals the flaws of the human rights approach to international relations and how it undermines democracy. The irony of the human rights approach to world affairs is that it undermines democracy and even republic forms of government. Sometimes democracy is simultaneously presented as a by-product of ethical intervention, which is the case with President Bush. Yet, Chandler argues that human rights motivated intervention is a polarized effort that undermines automony of states and individuals and also it undermines the political system. Chandler
presents the example of Kosovo as the example of failure of ethical intervention that inadvertently creates a fragmented society without the moral cohesion the intervention is supposed to produce. The latter parts of the book seem to mention the emergance of a liberal elite which uses ethics to create a New World Order with moral superiors in control. This sounds rather radical, yet this book does a good job of presenting the case that ethical intervention is not what it appears to be. The book brings shocking instances of dubious international law practices and it shows a lack of structure in the ethics first defense. There seems to be no objective criteria or accepted moral system to guide the decision making of the so-called liberal elite and NGO's of Chandler's. In addition, the book introduces the concept of a new political system that is disenchanted with the status quo and the presents a growing emphasis on normative forms of reasoning for international intervention. Lastly, Kosovo to Kabul presents a new non-functional "political" system that legitimizes hedgemonic practices.
presents the example of Kosovo as the example of failure of ethical intervention that inadvertently creates a fragmented society without the moral cohesion the intervention is supposed to produce. The latter parts of the book seem to mention the emergance of a liberal elite which uses ethics to create a New World Order with moral superiors in control. This sounds rather radical, yet this book does a good job of presenting the case that ethical intervention is not what it appears to be. The book brings shocking instances of dubious international law practices and it shows a lack of structure in the ethics first defense. There seems to be no objective criteria or accepted moral system to guide the decision making of the so-called liberal elite and NGO's of Chandler's. In addition, the book introduces the concept of a new political system that is disenchanted with the status quo and the presents a growing emphasis on normative forms of reasoning for international intervention. Lastly, Kosovo to Kabul presents a new non-functional "political" system that legitimizes hedgemonic practices.
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