Just War or Just Peace?

Michael Barnett, University of Wisconsin, USA Those looking to understand humanitarian intervention in historical perspective, to consider the relationship between humanitarian intervention and international law and to explore past and present episodes of interventions that purportedly had a humanitarian character are well advised to employ Simon Chesterman's book as a guide ... Chesterman's sobering argument should be read by those on both sides of the debate about the efficacy and legitimacy of humanitarian intervention.

Melbourne University Law Review Dr Chesterman's new work is a useful corrective to those who would cheerily dissolve the distinction between legality and power, or between legal analysis and agitprop. ... [The] book provides legal and analytical tools that, hopefully, will help us differentiate between an excusable illegality, and yet another cynical usurpation of international law in the service of raison d'tat.

African Affairs Review from previous edition In this lucid and insightful volume, Chesterman provides a sophisticated but accessible account of the historical and contemporary relationship between humanitarian intervention and international law. Just War or Just Peace? provides both an excellent teaching resource for advanced undergraduates and beyond, and a wealth of information for researchers and professionals working in this area.

Books-on-Law a tightly argued and complex presentation, with numbered, easily referenced topics in the style of a doctoral thesis (which it is). A more textured work [than Christine Gray's International Law and the Use of Force], it is arguably a more interesting read for an audience that does not already have at ready access the historical background or international law perspective to this difficult subject. It is also a more accessible work for students, and decidedly less dry and fragmented than many standard international law texts ... Dr Chesterman gives us a fairly riveting review of the history behind the modern rise of humanitarian intervention.

International Affairs Chesterman has written a tour de force that exposes the weaknesses of the arguments supporting a doctrine of unilateral humanitarian intervention in international society ... Chesterman rejects the claim that states have a legal right to act as vigilantes in support of Council resolutions, even if they believe that this is the only means to stop a genocide. The powerfully argued thesis of this scholarly work is that accepting this proposition in law is 'a recipe for bad policy, bad law, and a bad international order'.

<br>Simon Chesterman is Global Professor and Director of the New York University School of Law Singapore Programme, and Vice Dean and Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore.<br>

Introduction; 1. The Just War: The origins of humanitarian intervention; 2. The Scourge of War: Humanitarian intervention and the prohibition of the use of force in the UN Charter; 3. 'You, the People': Unilateral intervention to promote democracy; 4. The New Interventionism: Threats to international peace and security and Security Council actions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter; 5. Passing the Baton: The delegation of Security Council enforcement powers from Kuwait to Kosovo; 6. Just War or Just Peace? Humanitarian intervention, inhumanitarian non-intervention and other peace strategies; Bibliography