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Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention: A Fresh Legal Approach Based on Fundamental Ethical Principles in International Law and World Religions, Brian D. Lepard (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002), 528 pp., $55 cloth.
After the Cold War, as the resistance of powerful states to redefining sovereignty weakened, and as the traditional political obstacles to the Security Council's authorization of humanitarian interventions waned, many activists, politicians, and scholars took a greater interest in reinventing the existing infrastructure for addressing humanitarian crises. It is in this context-the period between the Gulf War and the terrible events of September 11, a time some might characterize as a golden age for humanitarians-that we should view Brian Lepard's Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention. Lepard adopts the predominant sentiment of the post-Cold War world that, in cases of massive human rights violations, the international community has a right to intervene. From Lepard's perspective, the ethical frameworks of many of the world's religious traditions provide the necessary moral grounding and support for the right and duty of humanitarian intervention.
Lepard's "fresh approach" consists in categorizing ethical principles from Christianity, Bahai faith, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Chinese "folk" religions and developing connections between these principles and the legal means provided under the UN Charter and international law. Essentially, he illustrates the congruence among these diverse faiths in their approach to humanitarian intervention. For example, in identifying universal rights and duties to respect the human rights of others, Lepard cites not only the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Proverbs, Buddhist scripture, the Analects of Confucius, the Qur'an, and Bahai Writings, but also the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Charter (pp. 55-57). Lepard thus makes two important contributions to the debate on humanitarian intervention: he emphasizes how an attention to ethics and morals should play an important role in international relations, and he builds compelling bridges between these foundations...