Scholarly, multidisciplinary, and iconoclastic, this book provides a comprehensive study of human behaviour in organisational setting, discusses the theory and principles of self-organisation, elaborates the strengths of self-organisation over command organisation, and gives a complete roadmap to set up and sustain in any culture and society an exceptionally capable hostage rescue force specialising in mass hostage rescue. However, its numerous valuable insights, relying not on technology but people and employing the force of their intrinsic motivation, are not relevant to the niche of special forces and wider military context alone but can be employed across all occupational settings to build highly efficient organisations where people work voluntarily and deliver responsibly without the supervision and control of command element. Beyond formal organisations, all fields of human activities, including the private lives of individuals too can immensely benefit from radical ideas and useful information contained in it. Besides discussing the deeper questions of life as a whole, of organisational life in general, of mass hostage rescue in particular, and of character, culture, environment, leadership, and communication, it also elaborately explains how we make decisions in crisis, who is an expert and how one can become an expert, how do we learn and how we can learn better, what makes us commit errors and mistakes, what lies behind our failures, and how we can deal with errors and failures both as individuals and organisations. About Author: Avichal is an Indian police officer who has been associated with the world of special forces as a practitioner, instructor, designer, administrator, institution builder, and adviser for over two decades and has operated and trained in many countries of the world.

Degradation, dehumanization, instrumentalization, humiliation, and nonrecognition – these concepts point to ways in which we understand human beings to be violated in their dignity. Violations of human dignity are brought about by concrete practices and conditions; some commonly acknowledged, such as torture and rape, and others more contested, such as poverty and exclusion. This volume collates reflections on such concepts and a range of practices, deepening our understanding of human dignity and its violation, bringing to the surface interrelationships and commonalities, and pointing to the values that are thereby shown to be in danger. In presenting a streamlined discussion from a negative perspective, complemented by conclusions for a positive account of human dignity, the book is at once a contribution to the body of literature on what dignity is and how it should be protected as well as constituting an alternative, fresh and focused perspective relevant to this significant recurring debate. As the concept of human dignity itself crosses disciplinary boundaries, this is mirrored in the unique range of perspectives brought by the book’s European and American contributors – in philosophy and ethics, law, human rights, literature, cultural studies and interdisciplinary research. This volume will be of interest to social and moral philosophers, legal and human rights theorists, practitioners and students.

Contains a collection of essays exploring human dignity and bioethics, a concept crucial to today's discourse in law and ethics in general and in bioethics in particular.

Discusses the way leaders deal with risk in making foreign policy decisions

The notion of “human rights” is widely used in political and moral discussions. The core idea, that all human beings have some inalienable basic rights, is appealing and has an eminently practical function: It allows moral criticism of various wrongs and calls for action in order to prevent them. On the other hand it is unclear what exactly a human right is. Human rights lack a convincing conceptual foundation that would be able to compel the wrong-doer to accept human rights claims as well-founded. Hence the practical function faces theoretical doubts. The present collection takes up the tension between the wide political use of human rights claims and the intellectual skepticism about them. In particular two major issues are identified that call for conceptual clarification in order to better understand human rights claims both in theory and in practice: the question of how to justify human rights and the tension between universal normative claims and particular moralities.