Just War or Just
Peace?
Humanitarian Intervention and
International Law
Oxford University Press, 2001
Simon Chesterman
“Those looking to
understand humanitarian intervention in historical perspective, to consider the
relationship between humanitarian intervention and international law and to
explore past and present episodes of interventions that purportedly had a
humanitarian character are well advised to employ Simon Chesterman’s book
as a guide ... Chesterman’s sobering argument should be read by those on
both sides of the debate about the efficacy and legitimacy of humanitarian
intervention.” Michael Barnett, University of Wisconsin, USA
“Dr Chesterman’s new work is a useful corrective to those who would
cheerily dissolve the distinction between legality and power, or between legal
analysis and agitprop. ... [The] book provides legal and analytical tools that,
hopefully, will help us differentiate between an excusable illegality, and yet
another cynical usurpation of international law in the service of raison
d’etat.” Melbourne University
Law Review
“In this lucid and insightful volume, Chesterman provides a sophisticated
but accessible account of the historical and contemporary relationship between
humanitarian intervention and international law. Just War or Just Peace? provides both an excellent teaching
resource for advanced undergraduates and beyond, and a wealth of information
for researchers and professionals working in this area.” African Affairs
“a tightly argued and complex presentation, with numbered, easily referenced
topics in the style of a doctoral thesis (which it is). A more textured work
[than Christine Gray’s International
Law and the Use of Force], it is arguably a more interesting read for an
audience that does not already have at ready access the historical background
or international law perspective to this difficult subject. It is also a more
accessible work for students, and decidedly less dry and fragmented than many
standard international law texts ... Dr Chesterman gives us a fairly riveting
review of the history behind the modern rise of humanitarian
intervention.” Books-on-Law
“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
Reviewed in
Asian
Yearbook of International Law
Australian
Journal of International Affairs
Australian
Journal of Political Science
European Journal
of International Law
International
& Comparative Law Quarterly
Leiden Journal of International Law
Melbourne
University Law Review
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Oxford University Press in Australia.