Chesterman: No More Rwandas vs No More Kosovos: Intervention and Prevention

Simon Chesterman (New York Univ. - Law, Singapore Program) has posted No More Rwandas vs No More Kosovos: Intervention and Prevention (in La Protección Internacional de los Derechos Humanos: Un Reto en el Siglo XXI, Ana Covarrubias Velaso & Daniel Ortega Nieto, eds., El Colegio de México, 2007). Here's the abstract:

The type of problem confronting human rights today is not Kosovo but Rwanda. Put differently, the problem is not the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention, but the overwhelming prevalence of inhumanitarian non-intervention. Empowering the United Nations, in this context, requires mobilizing the political will of member states as much as it does the creation of new legal rules. In this context, the rhetorical shift adopted by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty - from a right of intervention to the responsibility to protect - may mark the strongest advance in this contested area of international relations. Nevertheless, as recent years have demonstrated, enthusiasm about intervention can be - to say the least - a mixed blessing.