Justifications of Inaction: Responsibility and Non-Intervention in Genocide

Abstract

This book's theme is located at the intersection of international relations, international law, and ethics. It provides an excellent overview of discussions on 'humanitarian' intervention during the last decades and an original and fruitful contribution to them. It clarifies some of the issues those debates left largely untouched. Peltonen's approach reverses the burden of proof and investigates why and under what circumstances non-intervention by members of the international community could be justified. Albeit this 'reversal' anticipates many of the later doctrinal innovations (e.g. in the Responsibility to Protect), Peltonen is not a simple observer of trends who just happened to have had the right intuition where the debate was going after the atrocities of Rwanda and the Balkans. Rather than a contribution to the never ending saga of human 'progress' and the apotheosis of universal human rights, Peltonen provides a thoughtful, prudent piece of work that will be read with profit by international relations specialists, international theorists, international lawyers, and, mirabile dictum, even by decision-makers.