Description

By (author) Gordon, Neve; By (author) Perugini Nicola

:

A chilling global history of the human shield phenomenon.

From Syrian civilians locked in iron cages to veterans joining peaceful indigenous water protectors at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, from Sri Lanka to Iraq and from Yemen to the United States, human beings have been used as shields for protection, coercion, or deterrence. Over the past decade, human shields have also appeared with increasing frequency in antinuclear struggles, civil and environmental protests, and even computer games. The phenomenon, however, is by no means a new one.

Describing the use of human shields in key historical and contemporary moments across the globe, Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini demonstrate how the increasing weaponization of human beings has made the position of civilians trapped in theaters of violence more precarious and their lives more expendable. They show how the law facilitates the use of lethal violence against vulnerable people while portraying it as humane, but they also reveal how people can and do use their own vulnerability to resist violence and denounce forms of dehumanization. Ultimately, Human Shields unsettles our common ethical assumptions about violence and the law and urges us to imagine entirely new forms of humane politics.

Table of contents:
List of Illustrations
Introduction

1 • Civil War
Humane Warfare in the United States

2 • Irregulars
The Franco-German War and the Legal Use of Human Shields

3 • Settlers
The Second Boer War and the Limits of Liberal Humanitarianism

4 • Reports
World War I and the German use of Human Screens

5 • Peace Army
International Pacifism and Voluntary Shielding during the Sino-Japanese War

6 • Emblem
The Italo-Ethiopian War and Red Cross Medical Facilities

7 • Nuremberg
Nazi Human Shielding and the Lack of Civilian Protections

8 • Codification
The Geneva Conventions and the Passive Civilian

9 • People’s War
Casting Vietnamese Resistance as Human Shielding

10 • Environment
Green Human Shielding

11 • Resistance
Antimilitary Activism in Iraq and Palestine

12 • Humanitarian Crimes
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

13 • Manuals
Military Handbooks as Lawmaking Tools

14 • Scale
Human Shielding in Sri Lanka and the Principle of Proportionality

15 • Hospitals
The Use of Medical Facilities as Shields

16 • Proximity
Civilians Trapped in the Midst of the War on ISIS

17 • Info-War
The Gaza Wars and Social Media

18 • Posthuman Shielding
Drone Warfare and New Surveillance Technologies

19 • Women and Children
Gender, Passivity, and Human Shields

20 • Spectacle
Viral Images That Dehumanize or Humanize Shields

21 • Computer Games
Human Shields in Virtual Wars

22 • Protest
Civil Disobedience as an Act of War

Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index

Review quote:
“Thoughtful and elegant. . . . Were the book to simply chart the use of human shields in warfare and situations of political upheaval, it would be a valuable enough contribution to the literature – Gordon and Perugini write in a lucid and persuasive style, employing still photographs effectively throughout the text to illustrate their thesis. What elevates the book is its theoretical framework of inclusion and exclusion –through this prism, the book is able to examine and interrogate a number of fascinating theoretical and practical questions, using unusual and innovative examples to further explore their thesis.”