Going Nowhere: The Rhetoric of Warfare and Humanitarian Intervention in Global Law and Policy Debates
Harvard International Law Journal Online, February 13, 2015
Mississippi College School of Law Research Paper No. 2014-05
18 Pages Posted: 19 Feb 2015 Last revised: 16 Dec 2015
Date Written: February 13, 2015
Abstract
From Kosovo and Iraq to Syria and Crimea, the specter of military intervention is a core theme within international law and policy literature. Rather than address ‘warfare’ and ‘humanitarian intervention’ as something actually occurring ‘out there in the real world’, this essay focuses on their functions within the text as a rhetorical device that helps constitute the structural conditions of disciplinary argument. In the face of what feels like escalating threats requiring immediate reaction, this essay seeks to demonstrate that it is instead exactly the right moment for reflection on the analytical toolkits that we take with us as partisans of a legal persuasion into given conflicts.
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