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From Kosovo to Kabul: Human Rights and International Intervention
From Kosovo to Kabul Human Rights and International Intervention Author:David Chandler This book takes a critical look at the way in which human rights issues have been brought to the fore in international affairs. Over the last decade, 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 "humanitar... more »ian action," part of a new "ethical" approach to foreign policy. The establishment 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. He asks why the West can now prioritize the human rights of individuals over the traditional rights of state sovereignty and bars to military intervention, and why this shift has happened so quickly. Charting the development of a human rights-based foreign policy, he considers the theoretical problems of defining human rights and sets this within the changing framework of international law. Meticulous and compelling, "From Kosovo to Kabul" offers a disturbing insight into the political implications of a human rights-led foreign policy, and the covert agenda that it conceals.« less