ABSTRACT
Raphael Lemkin's original formulation of genocide is only now achieving the attention it deserved, with a “return to Lemkin” palpably under way in the discipline that he founded – comparative genocide studies. Intervening in genocide and crimes against humanity and preventing these atrocities where possible have never been such prominent themes as today – whether in the sphere of international politics and diplomacy, academia, or public debate. The contemporary discourse of humanitarian intervention is a post-Cold War phenomenon, as Wheeler demonstrates in Saving Strangers. By supporting humanitarian intervention, one may be implicitly encouraging otherwise doomed rebellion and fomenting the kind of violence against civilians that one claims to abhor – hence the moral-hazard component. Voices against foreign “imperial” interventions, regardless of whether the justifications offered by the interveners are humanitarian, utilitarian, or a mélange, have occasionally straddled the political spectrum. In addition to the leftist anti-imperialist critique, there exists a range of conservative, “realist,” and isolationist perspectives.
