"In the aftermath of the Cold War there has been a dramatic shift in thinking about the maintenance of peace and security on a global level. This shift is away from a preoccupation with how to prevent major wars between sovereign states to a preoccupation about non-state transnational warfare and violence and strife within states in a world order that continues to be juridically and politically delimited by spatial ideas of national sovereignty and national independence as signified by international boundaries. In this book, Richard Falk draws upon these changes 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 Syria. 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.This book will be of interest to students of International Relations theory, Peace Studies and Global Politics. "--

In The Costs of War, Richard Falk brings together some of his recent essays, published and unpublished, examining the impact that the Iraq War has had and will have on international law, human rights, and democracy. A new introduction provides an overview as well as a sense of the current context and reflects on the internal prospects for Iraq and on the logic of an early US military and political withdrawal. Having been revised and updated to take account of the march of events, the essays are organized into the following sections: Part 1 addresses the effects of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq on the current dimensions of world order Part 2 provides a normative inquiry into the larger intentions and consequences of the Iraq War Part 3 considers the more fundamental implications of the Iraq War, especially on our understanding of war as an instrument for the solution of conflict. Falk demonstrates the dysfunctionality of war in relation to either anti-terrorism or the pursuit of a global security system based on military dominance; the historical potential of a realistic Gandhiism as a positive alternative in the setting of global policy in the twenty-first century. The Costs of War will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, media studies, and politics and international relations in general.

"In this important and path-breaking book, esteemed scholar and public intellectual Richard Falk explores how we can re-imagine the system of global governance to make it more ethical and humane"--