Friday, March 30, 2012

Falk et al.: Legality and Legitimacy in Global Affairs

Richard Falk (Princeton Univ.), Mark Juergensmeyer (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara), & Vesselin Popovski (United Nations Univ.) have published Legality and Legitimacy in Global Affairs (Oxford Univ. Press 2012). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:
Legality and Legitimacy in Global Affairs focuses on the problematic relationship between legality and legitimacy when a nation (or nations) intervene in the work of other nations. Edited by Mark Juergensmeyer, Richard Falk, and Vesselin Popovski, this volume brings together a wide range of contributors with a broad set of cases that consider when such intervention is legitimate even if it isn't legal--and vice versa. Chapters cover humanitarian intervention, nuclear nonproliferation, military intervention, international criminal tribunals, interventions driven by environmental concerns, and the export of democracy. The book argues that while some interventions may not be technically legal, they may well be legitimate (e.g. Kosovo), and also concentrates on establishing the grounds for legitimate intervention. Some cases, like Iraq, fail the test. Transnational intervention by states and international institutions has increased since the globalization wave of the of the 1990's and especially since 9/11. This book, by focusing on a diverse array of cases, establishes a clear framework for judging the legitimacy of such actions.