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Displacing Human Rights lays bare the counterproductive consequences of Western human rights intervention in Africa. Based on a case study of northern Uganda's civil war, and drawing on the author's own extensive fieldwork and human rights activism, the book offers a seminal critique of Western intervention and a new path towards peace.
List of contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Human Rights Intervention in Africa
- 2 The Politics of Violence in Acholiland
- 3 Humanitarianism, Violence, and the Camp
- 4 Peacebuilding and Social Order
- 5 Ethnojustice: The Turn to Culture
- 6 The ICC and Human Rights Enforcement
- 7 AFRICOM: Militarizing Peace
- 8 Beyond Intervention
- Acronyms
- Notes
- References
- Index
About the author
Adam Branch is Associate Professor of Political Science at San Diego State University, USA, and Senior Research Fellow at the Makerere Institute of Social Research, Uganda.
Summary
Today, Western intervention is a ubiquitous feature of violent conflict in Africa. Humanitarian aid agencies, community peacebuilders, microcredit promoters, children's rights activists, the World Bank, the International Criminal Court, the U.S. military, and numerous others have involved themselves in African conflicts, all claiming to bring peace and human rights to situations where they are desperately needed. However, according to Adam Branch, Western intervention is not the solution to violence in Africa but, instead, can be a major part of the problem--often undermining human rights and even prolonging war and intensifying anti-civilian violence. Based on an extended case study of Western intervention into northern Uganda's twenty-year civil war, and drawing on Branch's own extensive research and human rights activism there, this book lays bare the reductive understandings motivating Western intervention in Africa, the inadequate tools it insists on employing, its refusal to be accountable to African citizenries, and, most important, its counterproductive consequences for peace, human rights, and justice. In short, Branch demonstrates how Western interventions undermine the efforts Africans themselves are undertaking to end violence in their own communities. The book does not end with critique, however. Motivated by a commitment to global justice, it proposes concrete changes for Western humanitarian, peacebuilding, and justice interventions as well as a new normative framework for re-orienting the Western approach to violent conflict in Africa around a practice of genuine solidarity.
"A key strength of the book is its ability to analyse and reveal common patterns in seemingly disparate and complex empirical instances of counterproductive human rights interventions in Uganda. ... [T]his book should be required reading for all those working on various themes in Africa today."--The Journal of Modern African Studies
"This book provides a pessimistic, but much needed, critique of the history of foreign intervention in Northern Uganda. ... Responsible discussions of foreign policy must consider the ways in which 'great power politics' can hurt people in the name of protection; this book is an excellent place to start that discussion." --The Christian Science Monitor
Additional text
While there is other literature looking at the negative/unintended consequences of international human rights action, what Branch brings to the table is a breadth of analysis while simultaneously focusing on Ugandaa welcome contribution, given the lack of work in the area on Uganda.
