Overview

"The idea that we should ""do something"" to help those suffering in far-off places is the main impulse driving those who care about human rights. Yet from Kosovo to Iraq, military interventions have gone disastrously wrong. In this groundbreaking new book, Conor Foley explores how the doctrine of humanitarian intervention has been used to allow states to invade other nations in the name of human rights. Drawing on his own experience of working in over a dozen conflict and post-conflict zones, Foley shows how the growing influence of international law has been used to override the sovereignty of the poorest countries in the world. The Thin Blue Line describes how in the last twenty years humanitarianism has emerged as a multibillion dollar industry that has played a leading role in defining humanitarian crises, and shaping the foreign policy of Western governments and the United Nations. Yet, too often, this has been informed by myths and assumptions that rest on an ill-informed post-imperial arrogance. Movements set up to show solidarity with the powerless and dispossessed have ended up betraying them instead."

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9781844672899

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When can massive and systematic violations of human rights within one state justify a foreign intervention? Today, few questions are more pressing. With this vital and necessary book Conor Foley outlines an important agenda for change. Philippe Sands QC, author of Lawless World and Torture Team .

This is a penetrating analysis of modern humanitarianism. Conor Foley brings all his own experience to bear as he punctures the myths and delusions that have coloured discussion of humanitarian action from Biafra to Kosovo to Iraq, Darfur and Afghanistan. He lays bare the complexities and dilemmas that are rarely examined and argues that the answer to the world's woes is rarely military intervention. A stunning book! -- Helena Kennedy When can massive and systematic violations of human rights within one state justify a foreign intervention? Today, few questions are more pressing. With this vital and necessary book Conor Foley outlines an important agenda for change. -- Philippe Sands No one is more qualified than Conor Foley to raise questions about the good and the bad-mostly the bad-of humanitarian intervention. Foley has been there and done it as a humanitarian worker throughout his adult life, and he raises many disquieting questions as he uncovers the failures of even the most well-meant military interventions. Iraq ans Afghanistan loom large in this book, and the American travails there are dispassionately depicted in ways one rarely finds in mainstream media reporting. -- Seymour M. Hersh Drawing upon his personal experience from emergency operations across the world and legal scholarship, Conor Foley has written a strikingly original, wide-ranging and insightful critique of humanitarian action and military intervention. -- Alex De Waal

Aid worker Foley takes a critical look at the changing role of humanitarianism.Based on his online articles for The Guardian online edition, this text charges that political humanitarianism has become a multibillion-dollar industry that significantly influences foreign-policy decisions in Europe and the United States. Political humanitarianism is Foley's term for the blend of the politically activist human-rights movement and traditionally neutral humanitarian organizations providing relief assistance during conflicts and natural disasters. Since the 1990s, he asserts, political humanitarianism has increasingly pushed for military intervention on the grounds that the international community has a right, even a duty, to protect people. He cites interventions in the Balkans, East Timor, Haiti and Africa as raising questions about the conflicting claims of human rights, national sovereignty and international law. There is no basis in international law, he writes, for invading a country in order to democratize it; the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be classified as humanitarian. Drawing on his experiences in numerous areas of conflict, he concludes that humanitarian goods and services are too often employed to further political and military objectives. On assignment in Kosovo, he witnessed the international administration's failures there. More recently in Afghanistan, he observed aid being poured not into areas with the most need, but into those where it was most likely to weaken the power of warlords and buy the local population's allegiance. He points out that the integration of humanitarian assistance and military intervention poses serious challenges to aid workers and has inevitably led to a steady increase in the number of attacks on them. Foley calls for a return to the traditional principles of humanitarian aid work - independence, impartiality and neutrality - as well as a more pragmatic approach to the issue of intervention and recognition of the limitations of humanitarian aid's ability to address the problem of inequalities of wealth and power.Filled with tough criticism of Western governments' interventionist foreign policies and challenging questions for supporters of humanitarian aid. (Kirkus Reviews)

Foley provides a very useful, and alternative, review of the roots of contemporary political humanitarianism. Maria Ryan, Journal of American Studies When can massive and systematic violations of human rights within one state justify a foreign intervention? Today, few questions are more pressing. With this vital and necessary book Conor Foley outlines an important agenda for change. Philippe Sands QC, author of Lawless World and Torture Team .

Author Information

A humanitarian aid worker, CONOR FOLEY has worked for a variety of human rights and humanitarian organizations, including Liberty, Amnesty International and the UNHCR, in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Colombia, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Liberia, Northern Uganda, the Caucasus and Bosnia-Herzegovina. His books include Combating Torture.

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