Published Jan 2011 (Oxford University Press)
ISBN: 9780191001604. Hardback, 480 pages.
Description
Edited by Orna Ben-Naftali - Professor of International Law, The College of Management Academic Studies, Israel
The idea that international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) are complementary, rather than mutually exclusive regimes generated a paradigmatic shift in the international legal discourse. The reconciliation was driven by a humanistic ethos and its purpose was to offer greater protection of the rights to life, liberty and dignity of all individuals under all circumstances. The complementarity of both regimes currently enjoys the status of the new orthodoxy and simultaneously invites critical reflection.
This collection of essays accepts the invitation, offering diverse assessments of the merits of taking human rights to the battlefields of the twenty-first century. The range of issues, multitude of competing norms and narratives, and shifting paradigms explored in this collection, converse with each other. This conversation mirrors the process through which international law - paying deference to political realities while simultaneously seeking to transcend them - charts new pathways to advance its humanizing project.
