Invoking Humanity: War, Law and Global Order

Danilo Zolo

Aug 2002 · Bloomsbury Publishing

About this ebook

* Powerful, passionate and highly topical critique of humanitarian intervention* International political theorist with eight top-selling books"Whoever invokes humanity wants to cheat."In this first time translation in English, Danilo Zolo considers Carl Schmitt's maxim in the context of the "humanitarian war" waged against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the Spring of 1999 by 19 NATO countries. This erudite and disturbing book is a political, legal and philosophical reflection on an extraordinary display of Western Power and its present and future impact on the global system of international relations.Zolo's account of the war is located within the context of the irresistible drive of globalization which he argues brings economic, financial and military, ecological and ethnic-religious turbulence in its wake. Not only the future of the Balkan region, he suggests, is at stake here, but the fate of international law, the future role of the United Nations and the political destiny of Europe.

About the author

Born in Rijeka, Danilo Zolo is Professor of Philosophy and Sociology of Law at the University of Florence. He has been a visiting Fellow at the Universities of Boston, Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford, Pittsburgh, Princeton and the Federal University of Paraiba in Brazil. He is the author of eight books, including Democracy and Complexity (1992), and Cosmopolis: Prospects for World Government (1996) and he has been widely translated.