Perilous Interventions and the Indian Debate on r2p: A Case of Limited Engagement and Missed Opportunity
In: Global responsibility to protect: GR2P, Band 9, Heft 2, S. 211-218
ISSN: 1875-984X
This article reflects on Hardeep Singh Puri's approach towards the responsibility to protect (r2p) in Perilous Interventions, and, in so doing, also on the approaches generally taken in the Indian debate on the subject. It looks, in particular, at issues that both tend not to consider, limiting their contribution to the discourse on r2p. In this regard, the book is characteristic of critical Indian assessments of r2p, which have a narrow focus on the norm's interventionist pillar and a further tendency to view it through a West/non-West, interest-based lens. This, in turn, contributes to an internal discourse that pivots on selected, individual cases of intervention – as does the book – while precluding a richer and conceptual engagement with the norm. The book is also preoccupied with the negative consequences of military intervention and the lessons of failure, so much so that it misses an opportunity to consider more fully how the use of force for human-rights protection might be made less perilous or less necessary.