Neither willing to engage in a meaningful way to save targeted civilians in Iraq, Bosnia and Rwanda nor to stand entirely aside as massive violations of humanitarian law occurred, states embraced safety zones as a means to 'do something' whilst avoiding being drawn into open warfare. Humanitarian Intervention and Safety Zones: Iraq, Bosnia and Rwanda explores why and how effectively safety zones were implemented as a way to protect civilians and displaced persons in three of the most important conflicts of the 1990s. It shows how states consistently sought to reconcile their political and humanitarian interests, a process which often led to problematic and ambiguous outcomes, and assesses in fascinating detail the difficulties and controversies surrounding the use of such zones, variously called safe havens, safe areas, secure humanitarian areas, and zones humanitaires sûres . The book also asks whether or not such zones could serve as precedents for possible future attempts to ensure the safety of civilians in complex humanitarian emergencies.

Using legal arguments consistent with international law, this book explores whether and under which circumstances a State (or States) may establish and militarily enforce safe zones in countries that produce large-scale refugee outflows so as to protect its (or their) own interests by averting said outflows, as well as to alleviate human suffering in today’s world of civil and internal warfare. Though large-scale refugee outflows have become an increasingly frequent problem in inter-state relations, international law offers no clear remedy. Accordingly, interpretation and adaptation of the existing rules and principles of international law, in addition to State practice and the jurisprudence of international courts, are required in order to find appropriate and lawful responses to such situations. The book examines countermeasures, necessity and humanitarian intervention as possible legal grounds to justify the establishment of safe zones. Since the proposal of a safe zone for Syria remains on the international community’s agenda, the specific conditions of this case are particularly addressed in order to assess the suitability and legality of a possible safe zone in Syria.

Military intervention in a conflict without a reasonable prospect of success is unjustifiable, especially when it is done in the name of humanity. Couched in the debate on the responsibility to protect civilians from violence and drawing on traditional 'just war' principles, the centralpremise of this book is that humanitarian military intervention can be justified as a policy option only if decision makers can be reasonably sure that intervention will do more good than harm. This book asks, 'Have past humanitarian military interventions been successful?' It defines success as saving lives and sets out a methodology for estimating the number of lives saved by a particular military intervention. Analysis of 17 military operations in six conflict areas that were thedefining cases of the 1990s-northern Iraq after the Gulf War, Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, Kosovo and East Timor-shows that the majority were successful by this measure. In every conflict studied, however, some military interventions succeeded while others failed, raising the question, 'Why have some past interventions been more successful than others?' This book argues that the central factors determining whether a humanitarian intervention succeeds are theobjectives of the intervention and the military strategy employed by the intervening states. Four types of humanitarian military intervention are offered: helping to deliver emergency aid, protecting aid operations, saving the victims of violence and defeating the perpetrators of violence. Thefocus on strategy within these four types allows an exploration of the political and military dimensions of humanitarian intervention and highlights the advantages and disadvantages of each of the four types.Humanitarian military intervention is controversial. Scepticism is always in order about the need to use military force because the consequences can be so dire. Yet it has become equally controversial not to intervene when a government subjects its citizens to massive violation of their basic humanrights. This book recognizes the limits of humanitarian intervention but does not shy away from suggesting how military force can save lives in extreme circumstances.

Timo Kivimaki investigates the reasons behind, and consequences of, military operations by Western powers. It focuses on those interventions aimed at protecting civilians from terror, dictators and criminals in fragile states. In doing so it contributes to the cosmopolitan, feminist and post-colonial literature on humanitarian interventions.

Responsibility to Protect: Research, bibliography, background. Supplementary volume to the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty

More than ever, humanitarian aid workers and diplomats are engaging with vulnerable populations in areas once considered too dangerous to touch. Drawing on decades of on-the-ground experience in conflict environments around the world, Van Arsdale and Smith offer this important and revealing guide to the ethics, theory, and practice of work outside so-called Green Zones of safety. On behalf of governments or NGOs, on missions ranging from complex humanitarian emergencies to post-war reconstruction, social scientists in interdisciplinary teams are operating in settings where the line between civilian and military projects is increasingly blurred. This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the realities of these new humanitarianisms and for the fields of international relations, anthropology, development studies, and peace studies.