Mobilizing the Will to Intervene: Leadership to Prevent Mass Atrocities

Despite the handwringing and promises of "never again," the grim recurrences of genocide and crimes against humanity around the world have made it emphatically clear that the international community has been largely ineffective in stopping mass atrocity crimes. Drawing on candid interviews with eighty key figures involved in American and Canadian responses to the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and the Kosovo crisis of 1999, Mobilizing the Will to Intervene explains why and provides a roadmap for change.

"These people deserve our attention when they talk about genocide. Although perhaps tilting more liberal than conservative in their outlook, they are not mushy-headed idealists obsessed with soft power. They know that in a brutal world it is often necessary to use force. They want to marry the liberal notion of humanitarian intervention with the conservative conception of national interest." Tom Flanagan, The Globe and Mail

"Mobilizing the Will to Intervene […] challenges government to think big, for once." The Toronto Star

"It is the kind of book that can change the world." Montreal Review of Books

Provocative and practical counsel to make governments care about humanitarian crises.

Frank Chalk is professor of history and director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Con­cordia University. LGen Roméo Dallaire (Ret'd) commanded the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda in 1994 and was appointed to the Senate of Canada in 2005. Kyle Matthews, the lead researcher, has worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and CARE Canada. Carla Barqueiro holds a PhD in international politics from Aberystwyth University and has written ex­tensively about Canada's human security foreign policy. Simon Doyle is a journalist who has covered lobbying in Ottawa and the shaping of Canadian government policy.