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.

Explores the use of armed force in occupied territory under different international law branches.

This fully updated second edition the work previously known as The Handbook of Humanitarian Law in Armed Conflicts sets out an international 'manual' of humanitarian law in armed conflicts accompanied by case analysis and extensive explanatory commentary by a team of distinguished and internationally renowned experts. Topics examined include the historical development, legal basis, and scope of application of international humanitarian law; methods and means of combat; protection of the civilian population, and of the wounded, sick or shipwrecked, and of prisoners of war; the protection of cultural property; the law of neutrality; and the enforcement of international humanitarian law. This edition also incorporates new chapters covering the law of non-international armed conflicts and international peace operations. Highly topical issues including the role of the UN security council, the relevance of International Humanitarian Law in peacetime and post-conflict military operations, and enforcement through trials for war crimes in national and international courts are also discussed.

The third edition of this work sets out a comprehensive and analytical manual of international humanitarian law, accompanied by case analysis and extensive explanatory commentary by a team of distinguished and internationally renowned experts.

Now in a comprehensively updated edition, this indispensable handbook analyzes how international humanitarian law has evolved in the face of these many new challenges. Central concerns include the war on terror, new forms of armed conflict and humanitarian action, the emergence of international criminal justice, and the reshaping of fundamental rules and consensus in a multipolar world. ThePractical Guide to Humanitarian Law provides the precise meaning and content for over 200 terms such as terrorism, refugee, genocide, armed conflict, protection, peacekeeping, torture, and private military companies—words that the media has introduced into everyday conversation, yet whose legal and political meanings are often obscure. The Guide definitively explains the terms, concepts, and rules of humanitarian law in accessible and reader-friendly alphabetical entries. Written from the perspective of victims and those who provide assistance to them, the Guide outlines the dangers, spells out the law, and points the way toward dealing with violations of the law. Entries are complemented by analysis of the decisions of relevant courts; detailed bibliographic references; addresses, phone numbers, and Internet links to the organizations presented; a thematic index; and an up-to-date list of the status of ratification of more than thirty international conventions and treaties concerning humanitarian law, human rights, refugee law, and international criminal law. This unprecedented work is an invaluable reference for policy makers and opinion leaders, students, relief workers, and members of humanitarian organizations. Published in cooperation with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières.

Since the end of the Cold War, humanitarian interventions have continued to evolve and respond to a wide range of political crises. These insightful essays focus on the challenges associated with interventions when facing conflict and human rights violations, unmitigated systematic violence, state re-building, human mobility and dislocation. Each chapter is linked to the rest through three defining themes that permeate the book: the evolution of humanitarian interventions in a global era; the limits of sovereignty and the ethics of interventions; and the politics of post-intervention: (re)-building and humanitarian engagement. The authors incorporate a variety of case studies including Kosovo, Timor-Leste, Syria, Libya and Iraq, and examine the complexity of interventions across their different dimensions, including relevant doctrines such as R2P, 'Use of Force' and Human Security.