The book delves into the international community's efforts to regulate small arms and light weapons since the 1990s, highlighting the evolving dynamics among key global players. It explores the strategies employed by arms brokers and users to navigate and sometimes circumvent the intended impacts of these regulatory measures, offering insights into the complexities of arms control and the challenges faced in enforcing it.
Focusing on the intricate relationships between war, international law, and human rights, this analysis challenges traditional views that see war merely as a problem to be solved. It critiques how international law is employed to address political violence while situating human rights within the broader modernist project, especially in the Anthropocene era. Drawing on the theories of Foucault, Bourdieu, and Latour, the book reveals the insecurities created by the interplay of war, law, and rights for both humanity and other life forms.
This book offers a unique and powerful critique of the quest for international criminal justice. It explores the efforts of three successive generations of international prosecutors, recognising the vital roles they play in the enforcement of international criminal law. By critically examining prosecutorial performance during the pre-trial and trial phases, the volume argues that these prosecutors are simultaneously political actors serving in the interests of economic liberalisation. It also posits that international prosecutors help wage a mostly silent and largely unacknowledged politico-cultural war fought for control over the institutions governing modernist international affairs. As the author contends, international prosecutors are thus best understood as agents not only of the law and politics, but also of a war fought by proponents of various utopian projects.