From humanitarian relief to humanitarian intervention: victims, interveners and pillars

Current humanitarian crises are bedeviling the United Nations, relief agencies and governments. Efforts to provide food and other basic supplies to traumatized populations are frequently stymied by uncooperative regimes, violent militias, remote locations, high costs and complicated operations. As a result, humanitarian relief operations that have focused primarily on food distribution must be radically revised to encompass the much broader agenda of humanitarian intervention, which entails an aggressive, multilateral role within states. Five ‘pillars’ are proposed—basic needs, public security, political dialogue, human rights/justice and sustained economic development—on which to base future humanitarian interventions.     

Russia,humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: the case of Syria

Western analysis perceives Russian approaches to issues of humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as running counter to western‐inspired international norms. This debate has surfaced with some vigour over Russia's policy in the Syria conflict where, in order to protect its strategic interests in Syria, an obstructionist Moscow has been accused of ignoring humanitarian considerations and allowing time for the Assad regime to crush the opposition by vetoing a resolution threatening to impose sanctions. While Russian approaches are undoubtedly explained by a desire to maximize its growing political influence and trade advantages to serve its legitimate foreign policy interests, and while Moscow's attitudes to intervention and R2P exhibit important differences from those of the major western liberal democracies, its arguments are in fact framed within a largely rational argument rooted in ‘traditional’ state‐centred international law. This article first highlights key arguments in the scholarly literature on intervention and R2P before going on to examine the evolution of Russian views on these issues. The analysis then focuses on the extent to which Moscow's arguments impact on international legal debates on the Libya and Syria conflicts. The article then seeks to explore how Russian approaches to intervention/R2P reflect fundamental trends in its foreign policy thinking and its quest for legitimacy in a negotiated international order. Finally, it attempts to raise some important questions regarding Russia's role in the future direction of the intervention/R2P debates.     

Transcending the “Obnoxious Spectator”: a case for processual pluralism in ethnoarchaeology

Several commentators have argued that ethnoarchaeology will only become a productive part of archaeological research once both archaeology and ethnoarchaeology are unified by the axioms of a single theory of behavior. Through an examination of the different roles that ethnoarchaeological research has adopted, I demonstrate that ethnoarchaeology is already theoretically unified by a general concern with analogy. I argue that the problems that many commentators have recognized with ethnoarchaeology’s apparent eclecticism arise from an over-reliance on “core universals” by both processual and postprocessual researchers. Instead of implementing a single unified theory of behavior, I suggest that ethnoarchaeologists should adopt a pluralistic orientation that is sensitive to the contextual applicability of specific causal processes.     

Prudence and principle in international society: reflections on Vincent's approach to human rights

John Vincent's Human rights and International Relations argued for embedding the right to be free from starvation in the international society of states. Principle and prudence were combined in a distinctive English School analysis of the universal human rights culture. Vincent argued that the entitlement to be free from the tyranny of starvation and malnutrition was one principle on which most societies could agree despite their profound ideological differences. Other conceptions of human rights, including western liberal doctrines of individual freedom, had the potential to create major divisions within international society, particularly when linked with a doctrine of humanitarian intervention. More recent approaches to world poverty raise large questions about whether Vincent succeeded in attempting to marry prudence in preserving an international order that remains anchored in state sovereignty with a principled commitment to ending starvation. Important issues also arise about how to build on his reflections on the prospects for a global ‘civilizing process’ that bridges cultural and political differences in the first universal society of states.     

A solution from hell: the United States and the rise of humanitarian interventionism, 1991-2003

This article traces the rise of humanitarian interventionist ideas in the US from 1991 to 2003. Until 1997, humanitarian intervention was a relatively limited affair, conceived ad hoc more than systematically, prioritized below multilateralism, aiming to relieve suffering without transforming foreign polities. For this reason, US leaders and citizens scarcely contemplated armed intervention in the Rwandan genocide of 1994: the US 'duty to stop genocide' was a norm still under development. It flourished only in the late 1990s, when humanitarian interventionism, like neoconservatism, became popular in the US establishment and enthusiastic in urging military invasion to remake societies. Now inaction in Rwanda looked outrageous. Stopping the genocide seemed, in retrospect, easily achieved by 5,000 troops, a projection that ignored serious obstacles. On the whole, humanitarian interventionists tended to understate difficulties of halting ethnic conflict, ignore challenges of postconflict reconstruction, discount constraints imposed by public opinion, and override multilateral procedures. These assumptions primed politicians and the public to regard the Iraq war of 2003 as virtuous at best and unworthy of strenuous dissent at worst. The normative commitment to stop mass killing outstripped US or international capabilities—a formula for dashed hopes and dangerous deployments that lives on in the 'responsibility to protect'.     

A case for Slovene nationalism: initial citizenship rules and the erasure*

ABSTRACT. When Slovenia became a sovereign state in 1991, it had to define who its citizens were. Were all residents of Slovenia, regardless of their ethnic belonging, equal in this respect? This article provides an answer to this question by elucidating certain parts of the secession legislation – the initial designation of citizenry and one of its indirect outcomes, the erasure from the register of permanent residents. The ethnic/civic dichotomy will be applied in order to demonstrate opposing nationalist claims made by the ruling elite. In terms of specific processes, Slovene nationalism will be presented in three distinct phases: counter‐state nationalism (before the break‐up of Yugoslavia), state‐building nationalism (the initial designation of citizenry), and the nationalising state (after the secession; marked by the erasure and threats to revoke citizenship statuses of naturalised citizens).     

Cajal's views on the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine (October 1904)

In this report we present and discuss an unpublished letter written by Santiago Ramon y Cajal in October 1904 in relation to his possible nomination for the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine. This letter shows that Cajal was aware of his previous nominations for the Prize. He was convinced that these nominations had not been successful because neither anatomy nor histology were among the sciences included in the Nobel Statutes' definition of Physiology or Medicine. He gives a list of the merits he thought might be used for a new nomination, which included only works concluded during the previous five years.     

Two dwarves from Sweden: A unique case

In the same burial ground in use from the late eleventh to thirteenth century one male and one female dwarf were buried, only 1 m from each other. They were buried in the same way and with the same kind of grave goods as the others buried around them. The medical and osteological investigations of the skeletons show that the two individuals suffered from a very rare congenital malformation that made them dwarves: spondylo-epiphyseal dysplasia congenita with mild coxa vara. A search of the palaeopathological literature has not revealed any other such cases. Because this disease is extremely rare, it is very likely that the two dwarves were closely related.     

Using Information Technologies for Collaborative Learning in Geography: A case study from Canada

In this paper, we share our experiences in designing, offering and evaluating undergraduate assignments that used information technologies to help undergraduate students from different universities collaborate on resource and environmental management problems in Canada. We focus on conditions of collaborative learning and peer review, especially how our uses of information technology reduced or increased the challenges of creating the conditions necessary for collaboration. In particular, we consider our successes and setbacks regarding five challenges: (1) composing effective groups, (2) providing sufficient time, (3) encouraging individual accountability, (4) enhancing regional perspectives, and (5) incorporating peer review and reducing competitiveness.     

Reconsidering the behavioral basis for style: A case study among the Kalahari San

In this paper, it is proposed that there is a behavioral basis for much, but not all, of the formal variation in material culture that has been called style by archaeologists. This aspect of stylistic behavior is founded on the basic human cognitive process of identification via comparison. Such stylistic behavior is argued to be one means by which people negotiate their personal and social identities relative to that of surrounding others. Thus, the process of social, and corresponding stylistic, comparison is proposed as the mechanism underlying stylistic development and change. This behavioral basis for style is explicated in a case study among the Kalahari San, in which the role of style in beaded headbands in regional, areal, and personal identity relations, as well as exchange, is investigated. Finally, the proposed behavioral basis for style is discussed in terms of what it can contribute to interpretation of variability in material culture, current approaches to style, and its implications for the development of a theory of style.     

Behavioural archaeology and refuse patterns: A case study

This paper examines the association and distribution of different classes of refuse around a late Iron Age and Roman settlement in Essex, England. It is shown, for instance, that bone and pottery refuse from the eating of meals was distributed differently from that deriving from food preparation. Some conclusions are then drawn about activity variation within the settlement. Clearly, this approach can extract a great wealth of information from extensively excavated settlements, but it is also argued that similar studies are both feasible and necessary for small‐scale, rescue excavations.