Review: No Easy Fix

Abstract

NO EASY FIX Global Responses to Internal Wars and Crimes against Humanity Patricia Marchak Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008. 376pp, $34.95 cloth ISBN 978-0773533684Dealing with sovereign regimes that have perpetrated crimes against the human rights of their own citizens is a perennial problem for the international community, that nebulous and faceless force. Related to this issue, and perhaps the real crux ofthe problem, is the fact that countries remain at odds over the interrelated questions of state sovereignty and the legitimacy of foreign intervention. The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 - which the White House initially justified on the grounds of international security and, subsequently, by appealing to humanitarian considerations - raised exactly these concerns and demonstrated how elusive a global consensus on these issues remains. The ongoing conflict in Darfur poses similar problems. In western countries, public pressure for intervention to stop what many consider to be a genocide highlights the tension between state sovereignty and humanitarian principles. The Sudanese governmenf s refusal to recognize the authority ofthe International Criminal Court - which has attempted to bring to trial various members ofthe regime - casts doubt on the ability of international organizations to discharge their stated responsibilities.Patricia Marchak's book attempts to make sense of these issues. It is the valiant effort of a gifted and erudite scholar. If her conclusion is sobering, the blame hardly lies with her. The weight of her subject hangs heavily over every page. As Marchak herself admits, she is skeptical about the international community's ability to uphold an effective system of global justice. Humanitarian intervention, she notes, may be an idea whose time has arrived, but it has arrived in the context of a failing state system, and the one organization that has the moral authority to address the problems lacks the military capacity and the political will to do so (38). Concepts such as the responsibility to protect, a subject that forms the basis for one ofthe book's most convincing chapters, are, Marchak notes, often strong in sentiment but weak in execution. A further issue contributing to the author's doubts is the ability of international law - a western-centric and western-oriented concept - to develop into a legitimate and universally-accepted legal regime.But despite this skepticism, No Easy Fix avoids crass pessimism. Marchak has spent the last decade developing a solid reputation as a specialist in political ethics and its relation to state governance, and she is clearly aware of the implications of her subject. Her 2003 book Reigns of Terror examined various theoretical and historical approaches to cases involving state crimes against citizens, and argued for a theoretical connection between state systems and humanitarian crimes. The goal was to explain why states choose or are able to commit violent crimes against their own citizens.In many ways, Reigns of Terror is a prequel to No Easy Fix. While the former examined the mechanisms that allow state-sponsored violence to develop, the latter focuses on the repercussions of such violence, including the international community's attempts to bring justice to divided societies, the ability of these societies to come to terms with their legacies of violence, and the flaws inherent in the very concept of global justice. …