Book Review: Aidan Hehir, Humanitarian Intervention (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)

• Author: Gentian Zyberi
• Position: Lecturer at the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights, Utrecht University
• Pages: 92-94

Aidan Hehir, Humanitarian Intervention: An Introduction

Palgrave Macmillan (2010) ISBN-10:9780230220300 ISBN-13:978-023022030

Gentian Zyberi*

Merkourios 2011 – Volume 27/Issue 73, Book Review, pp. 92-94.

URN: NBN:NL:UI:10-1-100936

ISSN: 0927-460X

URL: www.merkourios.org

Publisher: Igitur, Utrecht Publishing & Archiving Services

Copyright: this work has been licensed by the Creative Commons Attribution License (3.0)

Book review

Merkourios - European and International environmental law - Vol. 27/73 92

Aidan Hehir’s book is an important, comprehensive addition to the existing literature on humanitarian intervention.

Although over the years humanitarian intervention has come to be seen as part of the ‘duty to react’ component of the wider

‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine, issues relating to when and how to intervene militarily in order to stop mass atrocities

remain quite popular. is book provides an accessible and engaging introduction to the key issues involved in the vivid

humanitarian intervention debate. It is clearly structured and suitable for use as a textbook for courses prepared for students

of law, political science or international relations. rough its information boxes containing concise data on key journals and

authors on humanitarian intervention, denitions of humanitarian intervention and so on, the book provides a wealth of

sources on dierent aspects of humanitarian intervention.1 Its bibliography contains a detailed overview of the literature on

this topic.2 At the end of each chapter, there is a detailed list of further key readings and a number of questions for checking

the reader’s understanding of the issues discussed. While debates over this highly controversial subject are not likely to end,

the book helps put them in the right perspective by dealing thoroughly with salient political and legal issues.

As stated above, the book oers a broad introduction to the theory, practice and politics of humanitarian intervention. is

broad introduction is supplemented by detailed discussions of the experiences in Rwanda, Kosovo, Darfur and Iraq.

e book has a total of 15 chapters. ese chapters are divided into an introduction, a conclusion, and three major topical

sections. e rst major section deals with concepts and conceptions. is section is divided into four chapters, dealing

respectively with the following topics: the denition humanitarian intervention; the just war tradition; the sovereign state;

and theoretical perspectives. Chapter four of the book addresses dierent theoretical perspectives on the issue of humanitarian

intervention. In this chapter, the author highlights broad trends and key perspectives from theories of international relations

that have the most to say about humanitarian intervention: realism, Marxism, liberalism, the English School, cosmopolitanism,

and post-structuralism.3 Although the categorizations are rather broad, these international relations theories provide a

framework for understanding why States behave in certain ways.

* Dr Gentian Zyberi is a lecturer at the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights, Utrecht University.

1 A Hehir, Humanitarian Intervention: An Introduction (Palgrave Macmillan 2010) List of Boxes, xii.

2 Hehir, Bibliography, 267-293.

3 ibid 61.