Challenges for Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical Demand and Political Reality

Ten new essays critique the practice of armed humanitarian intervention, whereby one state sends its armed forces into another to protect citizens against major human rights abuses. The contributors examine a range of concerns, for instance about potential adverse effects and about ulterior motives. C. A. J. Coady is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne and Honorary Professor at the Australian Catholic University. His books include the influential Testimony: A Philosophical Study (1992) and the widely cited Morality and Political Violence (2008). In 2005, he gave the Uehiro Lectures on Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, subsequently published as Messy Morality: the Challenge of Politics (2008). Dr. Ned Dobos is Senior Lecturer in International and Political Studies at UNSW Canberra. He is the author of Insurrection and Intervention (Cambridge University Press, 2012), and The New Pacifism (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). Dr. Dobos was a Visiting Scholar with the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and is a Senior Global Justice Fellow at the MacMillan Centre for International Studies at Yale. He is currently Assistant Regional Director of the International Society for Military Ethics, Asia-Pacific Division. Dr Sanyal's primary interests are in political economy and Marxist philosophy. He has published in forums such as Journal of Philosophy, Bioethics, Philosophy Compass, and Social Scientist. He co-edited The Ethics of Human Enhancement, (OUP, 2016).