Humanitarian Intervention and Legitimacy Wars

Book excerpt: Esteemed scholar Richard Falk draws on his vast experience as a public intellectual and special rapporteur for the United Nations to examine the ethics and politics of humanitarian intervention in the 21st Century. As well as analysing the theoretical and conceptual basis of the responsibility to protect, the book also contains a number of case studies looking at Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Libya. The final section explores when humanitarian intervention can succeed and the changing nature of international political legitimacy in countries such as India, Tibet, South Africa and Palestine.