Human Rights and Crimes Against Humanity

"Winner of the 2011 Lemkin Award, Institute for the Study of Genocide" Emma Gilligan is assistant professor of Russian history and human rights at the University of Connecticut. She is the author of Defending Human Rights in Russia: Sergei Kovalyov, Dissident and Human Rights Commissioner, 1969-2003. A riveting history of Russia's crimes in Chechnya Terror in Chechnya is the definitive account of Russian war crimes in Chechnya. Emma Gilligan provides a comprehensive history of the second Chechen conflict of 1999 to 2005, revealing one of the most appalling human rights catastrophes of the modern era-one that has yet to be fully acknowledged by the international community. Drawing upon eyewitness testimony and interviews with refugees and key political and humanitarian figures, Gilligan tells for the first time the full story of the Russian military's systematic use of torture, disappearances, executions, and other punitive tactics against the Chechen population. In Terror in Chechnya, Gilligan challenges Russian claims that civilian casualties in Chechnya were an unavoidable consequence of civil war. She argues that racism and nationalism were substantial factors in Russia's second war against the Chechens and the resulting refugee crisis. She does not ignore the war crimes committed by Chechen separatists and pro-Moscow forces. Gilligan traces the radicalization of Chechen fighters and sheds light on the Dubrovka and Beslan hostage crises, demonstrating how they undermined the separatist movement and in turn contributed to racial hatred against Chechens in Moscow. A haunting testament of modern-day crimes against humanity, Terror in Chechnya also looks at the international response to the conflict, focusing on Europe's humanitarian and human rights efforts inside Chechnya. "Emma Gilligan's book chronicles Moscow's brutal response to the republic's demand for freedom, an onslaught that has shattered Chechen society, fuelled armed resistance across the Caucasus and bred a new generation of violent extremists. She focuses on the second Chechen war, started by Boris Yeltsin in autumn 1999 and pursued by Vladimir Putin when he stepped up from the prime minister's post to the Kremlin in 2000. . . . Her thorough research is enlivened by testimony from Chechen victims of Russian troops and their local henchmen." "Gilligan provides the definitive history of Russian policies toward Chechnya in the period from 1999 to the present. Utilizing first-person interviews and documents from Russian, US, and international nongovernmental organizations, she narrates the events of the First and Second Chechen wars, the rise of Chechen terrorism, and the events at Beslan within a larger context of human rights, making comparisons to other 20th-century situations including those in Bosnia. . . . She has created a history remarkably free of technical jargon and specialist vocabulary that should serve as a good introduction to the subject and region for students and scholars of history, political science, and international law." "Terror in Chechnya is perhaps the most important book about the Chechen war available in English today."---Anna Brodsky, Russian Review "[Gilligan's] book is an important contribution to the literature. Her multilayered approach, her ability to highlight competing perspectives, and her insights into the way future investigations of human rights abuses could be conducted make her work a valuable contribution to the study of human rights."---Maria Raquel Freire, Perspectives on Politics "[T]he Chechen conflict, as a research subject, should be more frequently addressed to from the various perspectives. Gilligan's book is a solid pioneering piece of work in this direction."---Kiryl Kascian, Central European Journal of International and Security Studies "Emma Gilligan's book is an invaluable guide to the tragic consequences for Chechnya--and Russia--of a twin dynamic that has dominated post-Soviet Russian politics: the

Norman M. Naimark is the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies at Stanford University. His books include Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe and The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949. The chilling story of Stalin's crimes against humanity Between the early 1930s and his death in 1953, Joseph Stalin had more than a million of his own citizens executed. Millions more fell victim to forced labor, deportation, famine, bloody massacres, and detention and interrogation by Stalin's henchmen. Stalin's Genocides is the chilling story of these crimes. The book puts forward the important argument that brutal mass killings under Stalin in the 1930s were indeed acts of genocide and that the Soviet dictator himself was behind them. Norman Naimark, one of our most respected authorities on the Soviet era, challenges the widely held notion that Stalin's crimes do not constitute genocide, which the United Nations defines as the premeditated killing of a group of people because of their race, religion, or inherent national qualities. In this gripping book, Naimark explains how Stalin became a pitiless mass killer. He looks at the most consequential and harrowing episodes of Stalin's systematic destruction of his own populace-the liquidation and repression of the so-called kulaks, the Ukrainian famine, the purge of nationalities, and the Great Terror-and examines them in light of other genocides in history. In addition, Naimark compares Stalin's crimes with those of the most notorious genocidal killer of them all, Adolf Hitler. "Naimark's short book is a polemical contribution to this debate. Though he acknowledges the dubious political history of the UN convention, he goes on to argue that even under the current definition, Stalin's attack on the kulaks and on the Ukrainian peasants should count as genocide. . . . Perhaps we need a new word, one that is broader than the current definition of genocide and means, simply, 'mass murder carried out for political reasons.'"---Anne Applebaum, New York Review of Books "Stalin's Genocides is compellingly written, nuanced and powerfully argued." "This is a small book that places a large exclamation point on the most incriminatingly tragic dimension of Soviet history."---Robert Levgold, Foreign Affairs "Controversial and provocative. . . . Naimark's daring effort to redefine several of the crimes committed by Stalin's regime in the 1930s and 1940s as acts of genocide is admirable. His study is also particularly timely."---Zbysek Brezina, History Today "Naimark gives us here in a very condensed form a fine piece of scholarship. . . . After closing the cover of this well-written and powerfully-argued monograph, more than one reader will be left wondering how Stalin was able to achieve such ghastly results."---J. Guy Lalande, Canadian Journal of History "Written elegantly and researched impeccably, this volume will be of interest to academic and non-academic audiences alike. It will hopefully prompt other authors to re-evaluate Stalin's mass terror and name it for what it was."---Lavinia Stan, European Legacy "Naimark deserves great credit not only for having written a crisp, concise book but also for sparking a discussion that historians far too often are reluctant to have."---Mark Kramer, Journal of Cold War Studies "Stalin's Genocides is a magisterial and admirably lucid analysis of the Stalinist terrors that is both totally accessible and finely nuanced in its scholarship-Naimark's superb work assigns the criminality to Stalin's own bizarre personality as well as the repressive Soviet system."-Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Young Stalin and Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar "This book is simply outstanding. Naimark takes the most significant aspect of Stalin's rule-mass terror-and shows how it was applied under Stalin's direct inspiration and, often, his close supervision. It is proof of N

Davide Rodogno is Fonds National Suisse Research Professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. He is the author of Fascism's European Empire. Against Massacre looks at the rise of humanitarian intervention in the nineteenth century, from the fall of Napoleon to the First World War. Examining the concept from a historical perspective, Davide Rodogno explores the understudied cases of European interventions and noninterventions in the Ottoman Empire and brings a new view to this international practice for the contemporary era. While it is commonly believed that humanitarian interventions are a fairly recent development, Rodogno demonstrates that almost two centuries ago an international community, under the aegis of certain European powers, claimed a moral and political right to intervene in other states' affairs to save strangers from massacre, atrocity, or extermination. On some occasions, these powers acted to protect fellow Christians when allegedly "uncivilized" states, like the Ottoman Empire, violated a "right to life." Exploring the political, legal, and moral status, as well as European perceptions, of the Ottoman Empire, Rodogno investigates the reasons that were put forward to exclude the Ottomans from the so-called Family of Nations. He considers the claims and mixed motives of intervening states for aiding humanity, the relationship between public outcry and state action or inaction, and the bias and selectiveness of governments and campaigners. An original account of humanitarian interventions some two centuries ago, Against Massacre investigates the varied consequences of European involvement in the Ottoman Empire and the lessons that can be learned for similar actions today. "Scholars of international relations, law, and other disciplines have explored the phenomenon of humanitarian intervention, in which one or more states acting on behalf of the international community invades a sovereign state in response to the mass killing of civilians. Rodogno takes a historical approach to the issue in this deeply researched study of how the European Great Powers (primarily Great Britain and France) dealt with the massacres of civilians within the Ottoman Empire between 1825 and 1914." "Enthusiasm for humanitarian interventions in foreign conflicts tends to go in waves, as David Rodogno demonstrates in this erudite and well-researched book."---James Pettifer, Journal of Ecclesiastical History "Against Massacre fills a significant lacuna in the vast and growing literature on humanitarian intervention and will find readers among international relations historians and scholars."---Daniel J. Whelan, American Historical Review "[T]his is an important and groundbreaking work that deserves a wide readership among Ottomanists, Balkanists, scholars of international relations, and public policy experts with interests in the possibilities and limits of intervening to stop mass violence against civilians."---Max Bergholz, Historian "Against Massacre is a major contribution to a history of humanitarianism. Based on a multitude of Western sources, it profits from the new researches on late Ottoman history."---Hans-Lukas Kieser, Comparativ "Through a closer examination of the issue of humanitarian intervention in the nineteenth century, this book has made a valuable contribution to the political history of humanitarian intervention."---Pinar Senisik, Insight Turkey "This book is an easy read. It flows along nicely and will be popular with students and the chattering classes alike, for it says all the right things."---Kate Fleet, Journal of Islamic Studies "A timely, ambitious, and clearheaded account of the complex history of humanitarian intervention in the nineteenth century. Rodogno astutely shows how European humanitarianism fed on views of the Ottoman Empire as barbaric and moribund, and its Christian subjects as uniquely deserving of sympathy. Stressing the selectivity of int

"Winner of the 2012 Book of the Year Award, American National Section of L'Association Internationale de Droit Pénal (AIDP)" "Selected for the Washington Post's "Best of 2012: 50 notable works of nonfiction"" David Scheffer is the Mayer Brown/Robert A. Helman Professor of Law and director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University School of Law. He led American initiatives on war crimes tribunals during the 1990s, served as the first U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues (1997-2001), and was named one of Foreign Policy's "Top Global Thinkers of 2011." The behind-the-scenes story of how today's war crimes tribunals came to be Within days of Madeleine Albright's confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 1993, she instructed David Scheffer to spearhead the historic mission to create a war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. As senior adviser to Albright and then as President Clinton's ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, Scheffer was at the forefront of the efforts that led to criminal tribunals for the Balkans, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia, and that resulted in the creation of the permanent International Criminal Court. All the Missing Souls is Scheffer's gripping insider's account of the international gamble to prosecute those responsible for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and to redress some of the bloodiest human rights atrocities in our time. Scheffer reveals the truth behind Washington's failures during the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the anemic hunt for notorious war criminals, how American exceptionalism undercut his diplomacy, and the perilous quests for accountability in Kosovo and Cambodia. He takes readers from the killing fields of Sierra Leone to the political back rooms of the U.N. Security Council, providing candid portraits of major figures such as Madeleine Albright, Anthony Lake, Richard Goldstone, Louise Arbour, Samuel "Sandy" Berger, Richard Holbrooke, and Wesley Clark, among others. A stirring personal account of an important historical chapter, All the Missing Souls provides new insights into the continuing struggle for international justice. "All the Missing Souls is a very personal history, an angry book by an often bitter man caught in the middle, conflicted in his loyalties, trying to advance the American agenda on international justice, while simultaneously having to tell potential allies in other countries that the agenda did not apply to Americans. . . . [T]he question of whether the establishment of international justice was actually worth it hangs over David Scheffer's narrative. . . . Justice--imperfect, partial, expensive--has been done and even been seen to be done. In these places, murderous rages have subsided. Some have reconciled. States have achieved stability. People are moving on. One of the reasons for this may be that in some cases justice was done. If so, David Scheffer can be proud of what he tried to do."---Michael Ignatieff, New York Review of Books "The story [Scheffer] tells is fascinating, for it makes clear that his principal adversary in the struggle for international justice wasn't African warlords or Balkan nationalists but members of his own government."---Lawrence R Douglas, Times Literary Supplement "A diplomat fights an uphill battle to bring the worst criminals to justice in this dogged memoir. . . . Scheffer's narrative is an epic diplomatic history. . . . In it we see the birth of a more responsible and civilized world order." "David Scheffer, a former State Department official who was a major architect of the five new tribunals of the 1990s, takes a refreshingly different approach to American pride in his semi-autobiographical study of the new courts. He is critical of his president (Clinton), he is critical of his secretary of state (Albright), and, remarkably and refreshingly in an American memoir in the twenty-first century, he is critic

During the past several decades, the international human rights movement has had a crucial hand in the struggle against totalitarian regimes, cruelties in wars, and crimes against humanity. Today, it grapples with the war against terror and subsequent abuses of government power. In The International Human Rights Movement, Aryeh Neier--a leading figure and a founder of the contemporary movement--offers a comprehensive and authoritative account of this global force, from its beginnings in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to its essential place in world affairs today. Neier combines analysis with personal experience, and gives a unique insider's perspective on the movement's goals, the disputes about its mission, and its rise to international importance. Discussing the movement's origins, Neier looks at the dissenters who fought for religious freedoms in seventeenth-century England and the abolitionists who opposed slavery before the Civil War era. He pays special attention to the period from the 1970s onward, and he describes the growth of the human rights movement after the Helsinki Accords, the roles played by American presidential administrations, and the astonishing Arab revolutions of 2011. Neier argues that the contemporary human rights movement was, to a large extent, an outgrowth of the Cold War, and he demonstrates how it became the driving influence in international law, institutions, and rights. Throughout, Neier highlights key figures, controversies, and organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and he considers the challenges to come. Illuminating and insightful, The International Human Rights Movement is a remarkable account of a significant world movement, told by a key figure in its evolution.

Marnia Lazreg is professor of sociology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her books include The Eloquence of Silence: Algerian Women in Question. Torture and the Twilight of Empire looks at the intimate relationship between torture and colonial domination through a close examination of the French army's coercive tactics during the Algerian war from 1954 to 1962. By tracing the psychological, cultural, and political meanings of torture at the end of the French empire, Marnia Lazreg also sheds new light on the United States and its recourse to torture in Iraq and Afghanistan. This book is nothing less than an anatomy of torture--its methods, justifications, functions, and consequences. Drawing extensively from archives, confessions by former torturers, interviews with former soldiers, and war diaries, as well as writings by Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and others, Lazreg argues that occupying nations justify their systematic use of torture as a regrettable but necessary means of saving Western civilization from those who challenge their rule. She shows how torture was central to guerre révolutionnaire, a French theory of modern warfare that called for total war against the subject population and which informed a pacification strategy founded on brutal psychological techniques borrowed from totalitarian movements. Lazreg seeks to understand torture's impact on the Algerian population--especially women--and also on the French troops who became their torturers. She explores the roles Christianity and Islam played in rationalizing these acts, and the ways in which torture became not only routine but even acceptable. Written by a preeminent historical sociologist, Torture and the Twilight of Empire holds particularly disturbing lessons for us today as we carry out the War on Terror. "In Torture and the Twilight of Empire, Marnia Lazreg draws resourcefully on military history and sociological and cultural analysis to explain how the French colonial state tried to forestall its own collapse by terrorizing the Algerian population in viciously creative ways. She provides a fascinating intellectual history of modern torture; an unflinching empirical account, or 'ethnography of torture.'"---Priya Satia, Times Literary Supplement "Nothing short of a thorough anatomy of torture and cruelty, their methods, justifications, functions and consequences both on the victims as well as the perpetrators. . . . The author effectively argues that the occupying Western powers have not only justified their systematic use of torture and cruelty as a regrettable but necessary means of protecting and saving Western civilization from those 'who hate our way of life' but they have also used this argument as a pretext for invading and colonizing those nations that dare to challenge Western politico-economic hegemony. . . . Recommended reading."---Muhammad Khan, Muslim News "In this brilliant and disturbing book [Marnia Lazreg] looks at the intimate relationship between torture and colonial domination through a rigorous examination of French tactics during the Algerian war from 1954-62."---Will Podmore, Tribune "The philosophical analyses can be challenging to grasp, but for those looking to better understand the way torture figures into a military occupation, Lazreg's book provides an insightful and detailed account of the Algerian model."---Hannah Fleury, International Socialist Review "As a highly original, yet solid, analysis of the political sociology, psychology, and anthropology of torture, Lazreg's research establishes critical connections between Algeria and the Shock and Awe Campaign of the Second Gulf War with the Bush White House years marked by state terror abroad and at home. . . . This book is required reading for all."---Julia Clancy-Smith, Review of Middle Eastern Studies "This book interprets torture not as an incidental if frequent characteristic of neocolonial conflict, but as

"Winner of the George McT. Kahin Prize, Association for Asian Studies" "Winner of the Distinguished Book Award in Non-U.S. History, Society for Military History" "Winner of the Raphael Lemkin Book Award, Institute for the Study of Genocide" "Longlisted for the 2019 ICAS Book Prize in Humanities, International Convention of Asia Scholars" "One of the Financial Times' Best Books of 2018: History" "One of Foreign Affairs' Picks for Best of Books 2018" Geoffrey B. Robinson is professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles. His books include The Dark Side of Paradise: Political Violence in Bali and "If You Leave Us Here, We Will Die": How Genocide Was Stopped in East Timor (Princeton). Before coming to UCLA, he worked for six years at Amnesty International's Research Department in London. Robinson lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter. The Killing Season explores one of the largest and swiftest, yet least examined, instances of mass killing and incarceration in the twentieth century-the shocking antileftist purge that gripped Indonesia in 1965–66, leaving some five hundred thousand people dead and more than a million others in detention. An expert in modern Indonesian history, genocide, and human rights, Geoffrey Robinson sets out to account for this violence and to end the troubling silence surrounding it. In doing so, he sheds new light on broad and enduring historical questions. How do we account for instances of systematic mass killing and detention? Why are some of these crimes remembered and punished, while others are forgotten? What are the social and political ramifications of such acts and such silence? Challenging conventional narratives of the mass violence of 1965–66 as arising spontaneously from religious and social conflicts, Robinson argues convincingly that it was instead the product of a deliberate campaign, led by the Indonesian Army. He also details the critical role played by the United States, Britain, and other major powers in facilitating mass murder and incarceration. Robinson concludes by probing the disturbing long-term consequences of the violence for millions of survivors and Indonesian society as a whole. Based on a rich body of primary and secondary sources, The Killing Season is the definitive account of a pivotal period in Indonesian history. It also makes a powerful contribution to wider debates about the dynamics and legacies of mass killing, incarceration, and genocide. "A useful contribution to regional history and a much-needed voice in the 'path of silence' that followed a murderous time." "In this masterful account . . . the killings receive the comprehensive, scholarly treatment they have long needed."---Tony Barber, Financial Times "Robinson [displays his] ability to combine, with chilling calm, a broad theoretical analysis and comparative analysis with a detailed understanding of events."---Adrian Vickers, Times Literary Supplement "Robinson's work is painstakingly careful and deserves as wide a readership as possible. . . . The real importance of this book is that it exposes in meticulous detail a modern genocide from the inside out. Governments and politicians could learn from this to prevent genocides before they even happen."---Richard Cockett, Literary Review "Crucial. . . . The Killing Season is clearly and elegantly written, the prose often driven by a controlled anger."---Alex de Jong, Jacobin "The facts and horrors of [the Indonesian massacres of 1965-66] are the subject of Geoffrey B. Robinson's essential volume, The Killing Season. In careful detail, Robinson lays out the background for the slaughter and its execution, laying blame squarely on those Indonesians and Western powers responsible for what he calls a crime against humanity-the aftereffects of which are still apparent today."---Mitchell Abidor, Jewish Currents "Robinson's The Killing Season is a vital work in documenting one of the worst mass killings of the

Emmanuel Kreike is professor of history at Princeton University. His books include Environmental Infrastructure in African History: Examining the Myth of Natural Resource Management in Namibia and Re-Creating Eden: Land Use, Environment, and Society in Southern Angola and Northern Namibia. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey. A global history of environmental warfare and the case for why it should be a crime The environmental infrastructure that sustains human societies has been a target and instrument of war for centuries, resulting in famine and disease, displaced populations, and the devastation of people's livelihoods and ways of life. Scorched Earth traces the history of scorched earth, military inundations, and armies living off the land from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, arguing that the resulting deliberate destruction of the environment-"environcide"-constitutes total war and is a crime against humanity and nature. In this sweeping global history, Emmanuel Kreike shows how religious war in Europe transformed Holland into a desolate swamp where hunger and the black death ruled. He describes how Spanish conquistadores exploited the irrigation works and expansive agricultural terraces of the Aztecs and Incas, triggering a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions. Kreike demonstrates how environmental warfare has continued unabated into the modern era. His panoramic narrative takes readers from the Thirty Years' War to the wars of France's Sun King, and from the Dutch colonial wars in North America and Indonesia to the early twentieth century colonial conquest of southwestern Africa. Shedding light on the premodern origins and the lasting consequences of total war, Scorched Earth explains why ecocide and genocide are not separate phenomena, and why international law must recognize environmental warfare as a violation of human rights. " [A] sweeping history. . . . Kreike offers a stark corrective and an implicit warning: Humanity is not distinct from nature, and assuming it is can have tragic outcomes. Climate change is one; pandemics are another. In this book, catastrophic warfare is a third. Waiting for the fourth horseman would seem unwise."---Tatiana Schlossberg, New York Times Book Review "Waging war against the Earth is an old business, and this book provides ample-and dispiriting-evidence for it." "Might this be the most important topic that most smart, very well educated people have never read a book on? [This] treatment is excellent and engaging."---Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution " Overall then, Scorched Earth is a thoroughly researched academic book that sits at the intersection of military history and environmental history and especially delivers for readers of the former. A fascinating topic that is by no means light reading."---Leon Vlieger, Inquisitive Biologist "[A] powerful statement of what people often fail to see amid the horrors of war." "Kreike's analysis is novel, compelling, and provocative. Scorched Earth is a significant and important book that offers a major reframing of conventional assumptions about the nature of war and even nature itself."-Mark Levene, author of The Crisis of Genocide "The culmination of decades of painstaking work, this book is a crowning achievement. Scorched Earth provides new insights into dozens of campaigns in European and colonial warfare, and will shape debate for years to come."-J. R. McNeill, author of Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620–1914 "Scorched Earth is an impressive, thought-provoking, and richly detailed book. Kreike offers a new analytical lens through which to study the consequences of total war on both the environment and human societies."-Geoffrey B. Robinson, author of The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965–66 "Emmanuel Kreike has produced a sweeping synthesis of the history of war and environmental history grounded in a broad array of examples on bo

Noah Weisbord is associate professor of law at Queen's University in Canada and served on the International Criminal Court's working group that drafted the crime of aggression. He lives in Kingston, Ontario. A gripping behind-the-scenes account of the dramatic legal fight to hold leaders personally responsible for aggressive war On July 17, 2018, starting an unjust war became a prosecutable international crime alongside genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Instead of collective state responsibility, our leaders are now personally subject to indictment for crimes of aggression, from invasions and preemptions to drone strikes and cyberattacks. The Crime of Aggression is Noah Weisbord's riveting insider's account of the high-stakes legal fight to enact this historic legislation and hold politicians accountable for the wars they start. Weisbord, a key drafter of the law for the International Criminal Court, takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most consequential legal dramas in modern international diplomacy. Drawing on in-depth interviews and his own invaluable insights, he sheds critical light on the motivations of the prosecutors, diplomats, and military strategists who championed the fledgling prohibition on unjust war-and those who tried to sink it. He untangles the complex history behind the measure, tracing how the crime of aggression was born at the Nuremberg trials only to fall dormant during the Cold War, and he draws lessons from such pivotal events as the collapse of the League of Nations, the rise of the United Nations, September 11, and the war on terror. The power to try leaders for unjust war holds untold promise for the international order, but also great risk. In this incisive and vitally important book, Weisbord explains how judges in such cases can balance the imperatives of justice and peace, and how the fair prosecution of aggression can humanize modern statecraft. "Noah Weisbord has written as masterful an account of the century of legal toil dedicated to corralling the human urge to wage war as has yet found two covers . . . . Weisbord's work is that rarest of writings on legal matters: a kind of Decameron, a thoughtfully interconnected set of what might well be abstruse concepts, but told as a series of parables, aperçus, and case studies."---Brendan Howley, Literary Review of Canada "[This] insightful book . . . offers a valuable and provocative thesis . . . . The time is ripe to align with thinkers such as Weisbord, who advance a bold step forward for the restoration of relative peace rather than descend in a hopeless spiral of endless, grievous aggression against fellow human beings."---Shelley Walia, Frontline "A remarkable insider's account of the historical efforts to criminalize wars of aggression."---Payam Akhavan, Global Justice Journal "Weisbord's prophetic voice . . . should be heard and attended to by any human rights organization aiming at genuine pertinency in the 2020s and beyond."---Brian Philips, Journal of Human Rights Practice "Richly textured, eminently readable. . . . Masterful. . . . Riveting. . . . Overall, the book's engaging style and readability make it an ideal companion to a broad variety of courses in international law and international relations. It should also, in my view, be on the recommended reading list for governmental and intergovernmental lawyers, including military lawyers, who must address legal issues related to the use of force and international criminal law. The book provides an especially useful starting point for those lawyers as they begin to wrestle with the complex applications of the crime of aggression in actual practice."---Laura Dickinson, The American Journal of International Law "Weisbord provides a remarkably accessible account of the effort to impose individual criminal liability for the waging of wars of aggression. This rich, multilayered book is a welcome addition to the scholarship on the crime

Aryeh Neier is president emeritus of the Open Society Foundations. Previously he was executive director of Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union. His many books include Taking Liberties and War Crimes. A fascinating history of the international human rights movement as seen by one of its founders During the past several decades, the international human rights movement has had a crucial hand in struggles against totalitarian regimes and crimes against humanity. Today, it grapples with the war against terror and subsequent abuses of government power. In The International Human Rights Movement, Aryeh Neier-a leading figure and a founder of the contemporary movement-offers a comprehensive, authoritative account of this global force, from its beginnings in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to its essential place in world affairs today. Neier combines analysis with personal experience, and gives an insider's perspective on the movement's goals, the disputes about its mission, its rise to international importance, and the challenges to come. This updated edition includes a new preface by the author. "Aryeh Neier's insightful account of the human rights movement underlines the crucial role played by individuals and human rights defenders in speaking out against abuses. This book describes many of the human rights challenges that remain and is essential reading for all those wishing to understand the political challenges of our times."-Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the United Nations (1997–2006) "The history Neier recounts . . . is a history that he more than any other individual helped to shape. This lends authority to the tale."-Michael Ignatieff, New York Review of Books "A fact-filled, well-documented, pull-no-punches account by an insider."-Kirkus Reviews

Luke Glanville is an associate professor in the Department of International Relations at Australian National University. He is the author of Sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect: A New History. Twitter @luke_glanville A look at the duty of nations to protect human rights beyond borders, why it has failed in practice, and what can be done about it The idea that states share a responsibility to shield people everywhere from atrocities is presently under threat. Despite some early twenty-first century successes, including the 2005 United Nations endorsement of the Responsibility to Protect, the project has been placed into jeopardy due to catastrophes in such places as Syria, Myanmar, and Yemen; resurgent nationalism; and growing global antagonism. In Sharing Responsibility, Luke Glanville seeks to diagnose the current crisis in international protection by exploring its long and troubled history. With attention to ethics, law, and politics, he measures what possibilities remain for protecting people wherever they reside from atrocities, despite formidable challenges in the international arena. With a focus on Western natural law and the European society of states, Glanville shows that the history of the shared responsibility to protect is marked by courageous efforts, as well as troubling ties to Western imperialism, evasion, and abuse. The project of safeguarding vulnerable populations can undoubtedly devolve into blame shifting and hypocrisy, but can also spark effective burden sharing among nations. Glanville considers how states should support this responsibility, whether it can be coherently codified in law, the extent to which states have embraced their responsibilities, and what might lead them to do so more reliably in the future. Sharing Responsibility wrestles with how countries should care for imperiled people and how the ideal of the responsibility to protect might inspire just behavior in an imperfect and troubled world. "This book is well written, easy to read and . . . constitutes an important reminder that the responsibility to protect is a responsibility we have to come up with and we have to take it seriously if remembrance of historical experience, as cruel and as tragic as it often has been, is of any value to mankind."---Peter Hilpold, Europa Ethnica "Glanville offers an engaging analysis of the long history of thinking about how and why states should help prevent atrocities beyond their borders. He has done a great service for anyone interested in the evolution of the responsibility to protect as an idea and a guide to action."-Simon Adams, executive director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect "This excellent book succeeds in placing contemporary debates about protection from atrocities in their rightful historical context. Glanville deftly combines compelling insight into historical thought and practice with careful and sensitive exploration of a wicked political problem. A major contribution to our understanding of the responsibility to protect, this landmark study is sure to have lasting impact."-Alex Bellamy, director of the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect "This effectively organized and informed book takes a fresh look at the responsibility to protect, and traces its longer history to show continuities and ruptures. Taking a clear stance, Glanville engages with current literature on the topic and does so from a multiplicity of perspectives and approaches, which is, in my view, a great contribution. His use of history and historiography is wise, creative, and valuable."-Davide Rodogno, author of Against Massacre

"Finalist for the PROSE Award in World History, Association of American Publishers" Eric D. Weitz (1953–2021) was Distinguished Professor of History at City College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He was also the author of Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy, which was named a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice; A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race and Nation; and Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State (all Princeton). A global history of human rights in a world of nation-states that grant rights to some while denying them to others Once dominated by vast empires, the world is now divided into close to 200 independent countries with laws and constitutions proclaiming human rights-a transformation that suggests that nations and human rights inevitably developed together. But the reality is far more problematic, as Eric Weitz shows in this compelling global history of the fate of human rights in a world of nation-states. Through vivid histories drawn from virtually every continent, A World Divided describes how, since the eighteenth century, nationalists have struggled to establish their own states that grant human rights to some people. At the same time, they have excluded others through forced assimilation, ethnic cleansing, or even genocide. From Greek rebels, American settlers, and Brazilian abolitionists in the nineteenth century to anticolonial Africans and Zionists in the twentieth, nationalists have confronted a crucial question: Who has the "right to have rights?" A World Divided tells these stories in colorful accounts focusing on people who were at the center of events. And it shows that rights are dynamic. Proclaimed originally for propertied white men, rights were quickly demanded by others, including women, American Indians, and black slaves. A World Divided also explains the origins of many of today's crises, from the existence of more than 65 million refugees and migrants worldwide to the growth of right-wing nationalism. The book argues that only the continual advance of international human rights will move us beyond the quandary of a world divided between those who have rights and those who don't. "Engaging mounting scholarship on the history of human rights, A World Divided approaches the topic by focusing on nation-states as central to understanding human rights. . . . [Weitz's] book provides a useful entryway to understanding human rights struggles for undergraduates and the general public." "[A] wide-ranging and important book is about the global struggle for human rights."---David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer "An impressive tale with a wide-ranging reflection on the entanglement of two forces that have profoundly shaped the history of the past two hundred and fifty years: the nation-state and human rights."---Jan Eckel, H-Diplo "In this magisterial and riveting work of global history, Weitz chronicles the gradual, uneven, and disputed emergence of contemporary norms of international human rights from the struggles between and within nation-states over the past two centuries. A World Divided is especially worth reading at a time when many countries are governed by leaders trying to reverse recent advances in the protection of rights."-Aryeh Neier, cofounder of Human Rights Watch "By re-examining a wide range of events, places, and people, Eric Weitz illuminates the past and present in the global story of human rights. This is essential reading for activists, scholars, and everyone else interested in human rights."-Lynn Hunt, author of Inventing Human Rights "If you can read, assign, or recommend only one book on the deep and conflictual history of human rights, it should be Eric Weitz's wide-ranging, evenhanded, and meticulously researched A World Divided. Weitz, one of the foremost historians of human rights and genocide, brings a lifetime of research to bear in this sweeping and accessible book."-Kathryn Sikkin

Jacqueline Bhabha is a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, director of research at Harvard's François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, and the Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Lecturer at Harvard Law School. The first comprehensive look at the global dilemma of child migration Why, despite massive public concern, is child trafficking on the rise? Why are unaccompanied migrant children living on the streets and routinely threatened with deportation to their countries of origin? Why do so many young refugees of war-ravaged and failed states end up warehoused in camps, victimized by the sex trade, or enlisted as child soldiers? This book provides the first comprehensive account of the widespread but neglected global phenomenon of child migration, exploring the complex challenges facing children and adolescents who move to join their families, those who are moved to be exploited, and those who move simply to survive. Spanning several continents and drawing on the stories of young migrants, Child Migration and Human Rights in a Global Age provides a comprehensive account of the widespread and growing but neglected global phenomenon of child migration and child trafficking. It looks at the often-insurmountable obstacles we place in the paths of adolescents fleeing war, exploitation, or destitution; the contradictory elements in our approach to international adoption; and the limited support we give to young people brutalized as child soldiers. Part history, part in-depth legal and political analysis, this powerful book challenges the prevailing wisdom that widespread protection failures are caused by our lack of awareness of the problems these children face, arguing instead that our societies have a deep-seated ambivalence to migrant children-one we need to address head-on. Child Migration and Human Rights in a Global Age offers a road map for doing just that, and makes a compelling and courageous case for an international ethics of children's human rights. "[T]imely. . . . Bhabha goes beyond what might appear to be a specifically American crisis to situate the issue within global migration trends. . . . We have to hope that her call for a faster rate of progress will be taken up by those who are in a position to hasten it." "Child Migration and Human Rights in a Global Age is a deeply thought-provoking work filled with both anecdotes and evidence that should spark reflection and debate from academics and government officials alike. For historians, particularly historians of international relations, it also presents a range of understudied subjects that are both worthy of deeper historical reflection and policy relevant."---Meredith Oyen, H-Net Reviews "This wonderful book is the most significant study I know of that explores the implications for children's lives both of different forms of migration and of the ways in which these migrations are framed and responded to by state authorities."---Catherine Allerton, International Affairs "Jacqueline Bhabha provide[s] a welcome analysis of the international migration regime and its profound failings. . . . The [book] will find eager audiences in undergraduate and graduate courses in human rights, and will be required references for human rights scholars working on migration and the broader issues of international human rights regimes, institutions, and challenges of human rights policy change."---Jelena Subotic, Perspectives on Politics "Richly researched and passionately argued. . . . [This book] will find eager audiences in undergraduate and graduate courses in human rights, and will be required references for human rights scholars working on migration and the broader issues of international human rights regimes, institutions, and challenges of human rights policy change."---Jelena Subotic, Perspectives on Politics "The book is crammed with cases of child migrants who endured suffering and oppression both before and after their migration journey and, thro

"Honorable Mention for the 2019 Luciano Tomassini Latin American International Relations Book Award, Latin American Studies Association" Kathryn Sikkink is the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Her books include The Justice Cascade (Norton) and Activists beyond Borders. She lives in Cambridge, MA. A history of the successes of the human rights movement and a case for why human rights work Evidence for Hope makes the case that, yes, human rights work. Critics may counter that the movement is in serious jeopardy or even a questionable byproduct of Western imperialism. They point out that Guantánamo is still open, the Arab Spring protests have been crushed, and governments are cracking down on NGOs everywhere. But respected human rights expert Kathryn Sikkink draws on decades of research and fieldwork to provide a rigorous rebuttal to pessimistic doubts about human rights laws and institutions. She demonstrates that change comes slowly and as the result of struggle, but in the long term, human rights movements have been vastly effective. Attacks on the human rights movement's credibility are based on the faulty premise that human rights ideas emerged in North America and Europe and were imposed on developing southern nations. Starting in the 1940s, Latin American leaders and activists were actually early advocates for the international protection of human rights. Sikkink shows that activists and scholars disagree about the efficacy of human rights because they use different yardsticks to measure progress. Comparing the present to the past, she shows that genocide and violence against civilians have declined over time, while access to healthcare and education has increased dramatically. Cognitive and news biases contribute to pervasive cynicism, but Sikkink's investigation into past and current trends indicates that human rights is not in its twilight. Instead, this is a period of vibrant activism that has made impressive improvements in human well-being. Exploring the strategies that have led to real humanitarian gains since the middle of the twentieth century, Evidence for Hope looks at how these essential advances can be supported and sustained for decades to come. "[Sikkink] effectively demonstrates what has been done in the past, giving doubters and pessimists reason to hope about what can be done in the future. From a scholarly activist, a solid and encouraging piece of research on the status of human rights around the world." "While 'the gap between our ideals and our current practice' can give us 'the anger we need to fight for change', we also need the sense of hope derived from knowing that--and how--we can make a difference. Here we find the essential 'evidence for hope'."---Matthew Reisz, Times Higher Education "Evidence for Hope combines scientific rigour in addressing major, contemporary criticisms of human rights with the ability to propose objective means of promoting them exactly where it seems most crucial."---Isabela Garbin Ramanzini, International Affairs "Drawing on decades of research into transational civil society networks and international institutions, Sikkink counters skeptics from the left and the right who have argued that the persistence of grave human rights violations throughout the world is evidence that the movement has failed and should be abandoned altogether. On the contrary, she concludes, the struggle for human rights has indeed made a difference."---Caroline Bettinger-López, Foreign Affairs "Does the evidence really hold up that the world faces a fallback in human rights and a rise in political violence against innocent civilians? Not according to a leading human rights scholar, Kathryn Sikkink of Harvard University. In her latest book, Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century, she presents a slew of data

"Co-Winner of the 2013 Albert Hourani Book Award, Middle East Studies" "One of ForeignAffairs.com's Best Books on the Middle East for 2012" Taner Akçam, the first scholar of Turkish origin to publicly acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, holds the Kaloosdian and Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide Studies at Clark University. His many books include A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility (Metropolitan Books). An unprecedented look at secret documents showing the deliberate nature of the Armenian genocide Introducing new evidence from more than 600 secret Ottoman documents, this book demonstrates in unprecedented detail that the Armenian Genocide and the expulsion of Greeks from the late Ottoman Empire resulted from an official effort to rid the empire of its Christian subjects. Presenting these previously inaccessible documents along with expert context and analysis, Taner Akçam's most authoritative work to date goes deep inside the bureaucratic machinery of Ottoman Turkey to show how a dying empire embraced genocide and ethnic cleansing. Although the deportation and killing of Armenians was internationally condemned in 1915 as a "crime against humanity and civilization," the Ottoman government initiated a policy of denial that is still maintained by the Turkish Republic. The case for Turkey's "official history" rests on documents from the Ottoman imperial archives, to which access has been heavily restricted until recently. It is this very source that Akçam now uses to overturn the official narrative. The documents presented here attest to a late-Ottoman policy of Turkification, the goal of which was no less than the radical demographic transformation of Anatolia. To that end, about one-third of Anatolia's 15 million people were displaced, deported, expelled, or massacred, destroying the ethno-religious diversity of an ancient cultural crossroads of East and West, and paving the way for the Turkish Republic. By uncovering the central roles played by demographic engineering and assimilation in the Armenian Genocide, this book will fundamentally change how this crime is understood and show that physical destruction is not the only aspect of the genocidal process. "Akçam has long courted controversy in Turkey, where he was jailed as a student activist in the 1970s before claiming asylum in Germany, but his intellectual courage is beyond question. Moreover, while Turkey's official account of what happened in 1915 is unchanged, Turkish public and intellectual opinion is now much more open to debate. This dispassionate, scholarly study is a valuable contribution to help that debate move on."---Delphine Strauss, Financial Times "[T]he fact that a Turkish historian with access to the Ottoman archives has written this book is of immeasurable significance." "Akçam has long been the most vocal Turkish scholars regarding the Ottoman participation in genocidal acts against Armenians. Here, using Ottoman archival sources, the author makes his case that the Young Turk government had planned prior to WWI to remove the empire's Christian and no-Turkish Muslim population. . . . The author's discussion of the removal and execution of the Armenians is extremely detailed and well documented, and his usage of Ottoman sources, although questioned by Turkish nationalist scholars, is a very important addition to the study of this issue." "[A] major breakthrough in the our understanding of the social engineering that led to the near destruction of the Armenians of Anatolia, and of the dual-track mechanism for organizing it that the Young Turks employed. . . . [A] must for serious scholars of the Armenian Genocide."---John M. Evans, former U.S. Ambassador to Armenia (2004-2006), American Diplomacy "Taner Akçam's study represents a giant step forward. He produced a most important book, all the more so because the ideology of Islamism has endured, and most recently some of its outstanding proponents ha

"Winner of the 2016 Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize, Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies" "A Financial Times Summer Books 2015 selection" "One of Financial Times (FT.com) Best Books in History 2015, chosen Tony Barber" Ronald Grigor Suny is the William H. Sewell Jr. Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Michigan and Senior Researcher at the National Research University–Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg. A definitive history of the 20th century's first major genocide on its 100th anniversary Starting in early 1915, the Ottoman Turks began deporting and killing hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the first major genocide of the twentieth century. By the end of the First World War, the number of Armenians in what would become Turkey had been reduced by 90 percent-more than a million people. A century later, the Armenian Genocide remains controversial but relatively unknown, overshadowed by later slaughters and the chasm separating Turkish and Armenian interpretations of events. In this definitive narrative history, Ronald Suny cuts through nationalist myths, propaganda, and denial to provide an unmatched account of when, how, and why the atrocities of 1915–16 were committed. Drawing on archival documents and eyewitness accounts, this is an unforgettable chronicle of a cataclysm that set a tragic pattern for a century of genocide and crimes against humanity. "In recent years scholars of Ottoman history have published a number of path-breaking, award-winning academic studies documenting the annihilation of the Armenians in 1915. Published on the one hundredth anniversary of that horrible event, Ronald Grigor Suny's monograph stands out as another superb work, in this case the best narrative account explaining 'why, when, and how' the Armenian genocide occurred."---Marc David Baer, H-Nationalism "An authoritative examination of unspeakable horrors. . . . [D]eeply researched, fair-minded. . . . Suny creates a compelling narrative of vengeance and terror." "The centenary [of the Armenian Genocide] has raised the diplomatic temperature and precipitated many books. Ronald Suny's is the best of them: Balanced, scholarly, and harrowing, it should be read by all serious students of modern history."---Dominic Green, Weekly Standard "Suny is admirably dispassionate in explaining the particular circumstances that led the Ottoman government to embark on a policy of mass extermination."---Dominic Lawson, Sunday Times "[W]hat distinguishes Suny's scholarship is a scrupulous attention to context and the genuine imperial anxiety of the Young Turks. They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else (a title taken from another Talat diktat) is a fair-minded account. Unsparing in depicting the viciousness of the killing, forced conversions and kidnapping of children and young women, it is rigorous in its choice of language and nuance, generous in its empathy but implacable in its conclusions."---David Gardner, Financial Times "A tremendously powerful, scrupulously balanced, rigorous and humane account of a tragedy that still casts a shadow over the modern state of Turkey. It is likely to become the definitive reference book on the subject for years to come."---Justin Marozzi, Spectator "They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else will very likely be the standard account in English for the 21st Century of the Armenian Genocide and its broader setting. The event itself was the first major genocide in what was to be an entire century of genocides, and Suny is keenly aware of the lessons it can teach about the horrors it initiated. The book is strongly recommended."---Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly "Magisterial."---Brian Bethune, Macleans "[A]n excellent source for readers wishing to learn the history [of the Armenian Genocide]. Suny has provided an exhaustive, dispassionate treatment, situating the Genocide in the centuries-long relationship between Armenian Christians and their