Tag: Book Review

Book Review: 2034

2034, by Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis, Penguin Press, 2021, 303 pages, $27.00

Her adversary had made his move. Her move would come next. But was the torpedo aimed at the Wén Rui, or at her ship? Who was the aggressor? No one would ever be able to agree. Wars were justified over such disagreements.… Who was to blame for what has transpired on this day wouldn’t be decided anytime soon. The war needs to come first. Then the victor would appropriate the blame. This is how it was and always be. This is what she was thinking when the torpedo hit.

Realistic, scary, timely.

On 1 July 2021, Chinese Communist party leader Xi Jinping warned that heads would be bashed if any foreign forces attempted to bully China. Xi’s warning was, if you will, a naked threat to the US should it attempt to interfere with China’s ambitious goal to control and exploit the South China Sea, which it claims to own from the tip of China to as far south as James Shoal off the tip of the Borneo coast of Malaysia, exclusively. States in the region such as Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines beg to differ. But as famously recorded by Thucydides, the Athenians, when offering the Melians an ultimatum to surrender and pay tribute to Athens or be destroyed, had a simple message that continues to resonate in geopolitics: the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.((Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, 5.89 (δυνατὰ δὲ οἱ προύχοντες πράσσουσι καὶ οἱ ἀσθενεῖς ξυγχωροῦσιν)) Realpolitik at its rawest. No use quibbling about morality or fairness or legality. Continue reading “Book Review: 2034”

Share

Book Review: THE FUTURE OF WAR

THE FUTURE OF WAR, by Lawrence Freedman, Public Affairs, 2017, 376 pages, $18.99

Our regular assumption was that the odds of success might be shifted decisively as a result of some new technology. Gunpowder to musket, steam turbines to aircraft, missiles to digital networks, all changed the character of warfare, opening up new possibilities while closing off others. But the technology was rarely monopolized or else, if one side enjoyed superiority, adversaries found ways to limit their effects. Even for modern Western forces, technology encouraged a fantasy of a war that was fast, easy, and decisive: yet still they found themselves facing ‘slow, bitter, indecisive war.’ 

War has a future. It will remain a main staple for states large and small, for non-state actors fighting for an ideology, and for ethnic groups fighting over territory believed to be theirs. Continue reading “Book Review: THE FUTURE OF WAR”

Share

Book Review: LAW AND MORALITY AT WAR  

LAW AND MORALITY AT WAR, by Adil Ahmad Haque, Oxford University Press, 2017, 285pgs., $51.53

It is unfortunate that the moral theory of war is so often referred to as “just war theory.” This label suggests that just wars are real things that could be the subject of a theory ­– like politics, decisions, or music. In my view, moral theory should aim to identify and analyze the most serious injustices perpetrated in war. Many of these injustices – such as torture, rape, and enslavement – require little theoretical illumination. In contrast, launching indiscriminate attacks and inflicting disproportionate civilian losses are not, one might say, unjust clearly. What makes an attack “indiscriminate”? What makes civilian losses “disproportionate”? These are the sort of questions that moral theory of war should address. Perhaps a better name for the field would be “unjust war theory.” (p. 2)

I beg to differ.

Just wars are real things and subject to a theory reflected in the applicable laws. The “laws of war,” “law of armed conflict” (LOAC), and “international humanitarian law” (IHL), whichever of the interchangeable labels is your preference (I will use IHL), may at times fall short of the intended purpose, may be imprecise in providing exacting guidance or affording vague margins of discretion to what may seem, semantically, to be malleable standards, and may reflect over-permissiveness of conduct incongruous with moral philosophy’s meaning of justice and the nature of the good life (or the good war). But it is reflective of and in no small measure consistent with the realities faced by those who must apply them in the war theater, as opposed to paradigmatically in a classroom amphitheater. The facilitative aspect of IHL, i.e., that which it aims to achieve – whether viewed from a prohibitive lens or a permissive lens – carries the imprimatur of moral acceptability, however imperfect or unsatisfying. Continue reading “Book Review: LAW AND MORALITY AT WAR  “

Share

Book Review: THE WAR LAWYERS – The United States, Israel, and Juridical Warfare.

THE WAR LAWYERS – The United States, Israel, and Juridical Warfare, by Craig Jones, Oxford University Press, 2020, £80.00

Indeed, one of my central claims has been that ‘our’ use of law – from policy and national level interpretations of our rights and obligations under international law, to their operationalizations, to rules of engagement – does not generally proffer an alternative to military violence. In fact, the prosecution of US and Israeli warfare especially over the last thirty years suggests that the law is also a medium of violence and that a certain form of judicial violence has played no small part in enabling, legitimizing, and in some cases, even extending military violence. (p. 302)

“Are we clear to engage, yes or no? Come on, make a decision.” In the 2015 film Eye in the Sky, a British colonel (Helen Mirren) asks a military lawyer (Jeff Heffernan), as if it is up to him, to make the ultimate call. If he says no – which is not what the colonel wants to hear – then a righteous kill is sacrificed at the altar of legal technicalities, thus deliberately sanctioning the escape of a terrorist to wreak more terror another day. Of course, when called upon to give such legal advice, it is assumed (often wrongly) that the intelligence is right – that the target is what it is claimed to be. But even so, however accurate aerial strikes may have become, there is no avoiding collateral damage. The question often turns on how much collateral damage is acceptable, and moreover, what if the collateral damage ends up being much higher than predicted. Continue reading “Book Review: THE WAR LAWYERS – The United States, Israel, and Juridical Warfare.”

Share

Book Review: WAR – How Conflict Shaped Us

WAR – How Conflict Shaped Us, by Margaret MacMillan, Profile Books, 2020, 328 pages, €26.00

‘How can a planet live at peace?’ … ‘Would ­– would you mind telling me –’ he said to the guide, much deflated, ‘what was so stupid about that? ‘We know how the Universe ends –,’ said the guide, and Earth has nothing to do with it, except that it gets wiped out, too.’ ‘How – how does the Universe end? said Billy. ‘We blow it up, experimenting with new fuels for our flying saucers. A Tralfamadorian test pilot presses a starter button, and the whole Universe disappears.’ So it goes.  –Kurt Vonnegut, SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE

War is being waged today in just about every corner of our planet, as it will be waged tomorrow, and as it has been waged since human beings went from solitary hunter-gatherers to organizing into groups, forming societies, and forging nations. If human history has taught us anything about war, it is that with scientific progress, the human species has spared no efforts and has lacked no imagination in finding new, better, more efficient, and less costly ways to wage war. Never tiring of waging war, we can safely conclude that war, in all its forms (and those yet to be imagined), is here to stay. This is the reality. Continue reading “Book Review: WAR – How Conflict Shaped Us”

Share

THINKING OF WAR WHILE VACATING: a book review series 

The Drum

I hate that drum’s discordant sound,
Parading round, and round, and round:
To thoughtless youth it pleasure yields,
And lures from cities and from fields,
To sell their liberty for charms
Of tawdry lace, and glittering arms;
And when Ambition’s voice commands,
To March, and fight, and fall, in foreign lands.

 I hate that drum’s discordant sound,
Parading round, and round, and round:
To me it talks of ravaged plains,
And burning towns, and ruined swains,
And mangled limbs, and dying groans,
And widows’ tears, and orphans’ moans;
And all the Misery’s hand bestows,
To fill the catalogue of human woes.

John Scott of Amwell (1730-1793)

Four years ago this month, when we were heading to the beaches or mountains, or just chilling at home, as is the norm during August in Europe, I wrote a post Vacationing Without Vacating: an imperative for reflecting on the Blood Telegram. My point was to remind us that even while vacationing, we should be mindful of the plight of others less fortunate. Back then the events against the Rohingya in the Rakhine State of Myanmar were headline news, but so were the events in Syria and elsewhere.

We look forward (and deservedly so) to a bit of respite from thinking of such events as we try to recharge our batteries with some of our favorite pastimes – be it visiting places, exploring new hobbies, or simply indulging in reading a good book, preferably one that entertains – and to a vacation that affords the mind a leave of absence from the grind at work, from the daily chores, and from the pressures that come with being responsible adults. Who wants to think about killings, rapes, forcible transfers, deportations, ethnic cleansing, and all the human misery that wars, conflicts, and acts of terror bring? We are not asking for much – just to vacate while vacationing.

Yet war, conflict, terror, and human atrocities don’t take a holiday. Continue reading “THINKING OF WAR WHILE VACATING: a book review series “

Share

Book Review: THE LAST TRIAL

THE LAST TRIAL, by Scott Turow, Pan Books, 2020, 449 pages, $12.82

The law is humanity’s sanctuary, where we retreat from unreason. And humans need the law, because they need to believe there is some justice to their interactions, a justice that God or Fate or the Universe, call it what you like, will never provide on their own.

Reviewing Turow’s Testimony (2017) here, I completely panned it, recommending that you opt for John Grisham’s Camino Island, which had just come out (incidentally, the sequel Camino Winds which recently came out is also a recommended beach read). Turow had never disappointed before; I first came across him when I read One L when thinking of going to law school. But in Testimony, I found the plot absurd and unrealistic, his courtroom scenes laughable (he was on unfamiliar ground at the ICC), his stereotyping distasteful (though he is unquestionably tolerant and unbiased), his historical narrative lazy and misleading (conflicts are complex with no one side having a monopoly on badness). Worst of all it is a “gratuitous Serb-bashing, primarily resulting from ignorance and insensitivity; using them as a punching bag, stereotyping them, and generalizing about their character or activities.”

Not so in The Last Trial.

Continue reading “Book Review: THE LAST TRIAL”

Share

Book Review: EXTRAORDINARY JUSTICE – Law, Politics, and the Khmer Rouge Tribunals

EXTRAORDINARY JUSTICE – Law, Politics, and the Khmer Rouge Tribunals, by Craig Etcheson, Columbia University Press, 2020, 488 pages, $65.00

My central thesis in this work is that the law is at base an ideological enterprise, an ideology we can generally label as “legalism.” But – and this is crucial – the law is not a single, unified ideology. Rather, there are several different approaches to the concept of law, and we can see the animating principles underlying those different approaches in the way that war crimes tribunals are negotiated, operated, and concluded. I call these three approaches to law classical legalism, strategic legalism, and instrumental legalism. All three are long-standing, widespread, potent, and enduring. And the outcome of struggles among proponents of these different approaches determine much about how any particular war crimes tribunal ultimately unfolds.

The establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) is a complex story, beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s as the atrocities taking place during the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) regime (1975-1979) became known. A show trial took place in August 1979. Pol Pot and my client, Ieng Sary, were held to account for all that had occurred. After the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement – which led to probably the fairest election in Cambodia’s history in 1993 – bringing to book the leaders of the DK regime and other responsible high-level Khmer Rouge cadre started to gain some momentum. Eventually, on 6 June 2003, an Agreement was hammered out between the Cambodian government, controlled by the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), and the United Nations (UN).

Getting to this Agreement, what the parties (purportedly) understood to have agreed to, what emerged from this Agreement – i.e., the procedural framework of an international(ized) criminal tribunal or specialized chamber within a national court system, its jurisdictional contours and applicable law, its hybridity of personnel, personality, and their interactions (national and international) in making the ECCC happen, and how it has operated – is what EXTRAORDINARY JUSTICE – Law, Politics, and the Khmer Rouge Tribunals is all about. Continue reading “Book Review: EXTRAORDINARY JUSTICE – Law, Politics, and the Khmer Rouge Tribunals”

Share

Book Review: ADAPTING INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA – Beyond the International Criminal Court

ADAPTING INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA – Beyond the International Criminal Court, by Emma Palmer, Cambridge University Press, 2020, 325 pages, $85.00

Principles of sovereignty, related fears of international interference or selective prosecutions, a preference for domestic proceedings, the influence of other states such as the United States, and the existence of other priorities – including development and threats to stability arising from armed conflict – are all features of the debate about international criminal justice in Southeast Asia, although they may also be relevant beyond the region. (p. 237)

When I first arrived in Cambodia in 1994 to train human rights advocates to act as public defenders for the Cambodia Defenders Project, followed by a year of training judges and prosecutors (1995-1996), foreigners working at NGOs and international organizations were beating the drums of accountability – raising the prospect of bringing to trial those responsible for the atrocities that had occurred before, during, and after the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) period. The NGO industry was flourishing. It was like the wild West with experts, much like out-of-town hired guns, offering their services – much of which I would say was half-baked at best. I rarely heard local Cambodians calling for trials or justice; the primary, if not exclusive, preoccupation was having a roof over one’s head, food on the table, and schooling for the children.

Back then Cambodia was much different, though some things, as in the rule of law, have remained the same. There were only a handful of Cambodian lawyers (mainly from abroad), no bar association, a medley of applicable criminal codes and procedures, an untrained and unsophisticated judiciary (ditto for prosecutors), ethically challenged police (highly corrupt), and an exhausted yet hopeful population looking to promising days ahead. Continue reading “Book Review: ADAPTING INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA – Beyond the International Criminal Court”

Share

Book Review: A DESCENDING SPIRAL – Exposing the Death Penalty in 12 Essays

A DESCENDING SPIRAL – Exposing the Death Penalty in 12 Essays, by Marc Bookman, The New Press, 2021, 222 pages, $22.30.

Patterns emerge from death row. While racism plays a driving force on both sides of the aisle and from the bench, and inept defense lawyering often goes hand in hand with prosecutorial misconduct, there is another impelling cause of death sentences – severe mental illness. … Finally, there is the capriciousness of the capital punishment system, and what public policy operates on the basis of capriciousness?  pp. 216-7

Last Friday night, while blissfully indulging in discretionary reading, I came across Lendel Lee’s story.  DNA evidence proved that four years earlier, in April 2017, he was wrongly executed by the state of Arkansas. For more than a decade and up until he was lethally injected, he insisted that he did not commit the crime. As expected, or I should say, as usual, the Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who at the time was ramping up lethal injections, defended the execution by claiming he was merely following the law. Others in the criminal justice system who might have had a hand in Lee’s conviction and death sentence remained unmoved and would resort to alternative theories justifying the righteousness of the execution, such as the old standby that whoever left that DNA was Lee’s accomplice, or the DNA does not prove anything.

A few days earlier, I received a pre-publication copy of a book from my good friend Alan Yatvin, suggesting that I might want to review it. The title was intriguing, but it was the subtitle that caught my attention. Sighing, I thought to myself, not another death penalty book! It would have to wait its turn. So, I put it at the bottom of the pile of books waiting their turn to be read. However, as I stared at Lee’s photograph, with his last words echoing in my ears, I set aside the book I was reading and reached for the one at the bottom of the pile, A DESCENDING SPIRAL – Exposing the Death Penalty in 12 Essays. I am glad I did. Continue reading “Book Review: A DESCENDING SPIRAL – Exposing the Death Penalty in 12 Essays”

Share