The Thin Blue Line: How Humanitarianism Went to War
The idea that we should ‘do something’ to help those suffering in far-off places is the main impulse driving those who care about human rights. Yet from Kosovo to Iraq, military interventions have gone disastrously wrong. The Thin Blue Line describes how in the last twenty years humanitarianism has emerged as a multibillion-dollar industry that has played a leading role in defining humanitarian crises, and shaping the foreign policy of Western governments and the United Nations. Drawing on his own experience of working in over a dozen conflict and post-conflict zones, Foley shows how the growing influence of international law has been used to override the sovereignty of the poorest countries in the world.
Paperback, 288 pages
ISBN: 9781844676286
June 2010
$19.95 / £9.99
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Other Editions
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Hardback, 266 pages
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ISBN: 9781844672899
October 2008
$26.95 / £14.99
Reviews
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Fascinating and important ... rigorous and nuanced.
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Poised to influence debate ... Foley’s treatment of the court’s legal issues is informed and direct.
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When can massive and systematic violations of human rights within one state justify a foreign intervention? Today, few questions are more pressing. With this vital and necessary book Conor Foley outlines an important agenda for change.
Blog
"Monopolizing moral ground": Verso authors make the case for and against intervention in Libya
As military strikes continue by air and by land in Libya, political disagreements in the West are ongoing, dividing both right and left over what is now an aggressive UN-backed intervention. The issue has inspired opposition even among Verso authors, as posts by Richard Seymour and Conor Foley have recently demonstrated.
Conor Foley's The Thin Blue Line reviewed for the New Humanist
Susie Linfield reviews Conor Foley's The Thin Blue Line: How Humanitarianism Went to War in a substantial article in the New Humanist. The review compares Foley's book to two other recent books on humanitarian aid (Linda Polman's War Games and Irene Khan's The Unheard Truth).