Just War or Just Peace Humanitarian Intervention and International Law [Hardcover]

This book asks whether states have the right to intervene in foreign civil conflicts for humanitarian reasons. The UN Charter prohibits state aggression, but many argue that such a right exists as an exception to this rule. Offering a thorough analysis of this issue, the book puts NATO's action in Kosovo in its proper legal perspective.

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

Admirably thorough ... well-researched and articulate arguments. - International Peacekeeping

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'. - International Affairs

Simon Chestermanis 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.