Humanitarian disarmament : an historical enquiry / Treasa Dunworth, University of Auckland.

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 2020.

xvii, 256 pages ; 24 cm.

Cambridge studies in international and comparative law (Cambridge, England : 1996) ; 148.

"This book argues that the humanitarian framing of disarmament is not a novel development, but rather represents a re-emergence of a much older and long-standing sensibility of humanitarianism in disarmament. It rejects the 'big bang' theory that presents the Anti-Personnel Landmines Convention 1997, and its successors -- the Convention on Cluster Munitions 2008, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons 2017 -- as a paradigm shift from an older traditional state-centric approach towards a more progressive humanitarian approach. It shows how humanitarian disarmament has a long and complex history, which includes these treaties. This book further argues that the attempt to locate the birth of humanitarian disarmament in these treaties is part of the attempt to cleanse humanitarian disarmament of politics, presenting humanitarianism as a morally superior discourse in disarmament. However, humanitarianism carries its own blind spots and has its own hegemonic leanings. It may be silencing other potentially more transformative discourses." -- Front matter.

Based on author's thesis (doctoral - University of Melbourne, 2019) issued under title: 'What's past is prologue' : humanitarian disarmament from St Petersburg to New York.
"This book argues that the humanitarian framing of disarmament is not a novel development, but rather represents a re-emergence of a much older and long-standing sensibility of humanitarianism in disarmament. It rejects the 'big bang' theory that presents the Anti-Personnel Landmines Convention 1997, and its successors -- the Convention on Cluster Munitions 2008, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons 2017 -- as a paradigm shift from an older traditional state-centric approach towards a more progressive humanitarian approach. It shows how humanitarian disarmament has a long and complex history, which includes these treaties. This book further argues that the attempt to locate the birth of humanitarian disarmament in these treaties is part of the attempt to cleanse humanitarian disarmament of politics, presenting humanitarianism as a morally superior discourse in disarmament. However, humanitarianism carries its own blind spots and has its own hegemonic leanings. It may be silencing other potentially more transformative discourses." -- Front matter.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ebook version :

KZ6471 .D86 2020

English

9781108473927 (hardback)
9781108644105 (epub)
110847392X
9781108645102 (ebook)

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