The Question of Intervention: John Stuart Mill and the Responsibility To Protect

Doyle (Harold Brown Professor of International Affairs, Law, and Political Science, Columbia Univ.), a former advisor to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, has made extensive contributions to the study of international politics. This book analyzes the ethical question of intervention in another country's affairs from the perspective of political philosopher John Stuart Mill's famous 1859 essay "A Few Words on Non-Intervention," included in the appendix. As Doyle points out, Mill's moral reasons for nonintervention have to be evaluated, as Mill himself did, in light of the justifications for exceptions that override and disregard it, namely humanitarian protection, self-determination, and national security. The chief value of Doyle's book is in his application of Mill's ethics to modern circumstances. He traces the ideological origin of the modern "Responsibility To Protect," as it is understood in international law, to Mill's essay and elucidates examples from both Mill's time and our own—this makes the book a valuable supplementary means to understanding the essay for the 21st-century reader. The multifaceted, geopolitical implications of intervention and nonintervention in such cases as Rwanda, Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and a very timely chapter on the relatively recent events in Muammar al-Qaddafi's Libya will be of particular interest to students of foreign policy.