Human Shields/Human Crosshairs
Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Wars
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9348785 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Vasuki Nesiah (United Nations, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 110 |
| Pages | 323-328 |
| Publication date | 2016-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | AJIL Unbound (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2398-7723 • E-ISSN: 2398-7723 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/aju.2016.6 |
| OpenAlex | W2579855446 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
The nomenclature of human shields did not exist in 19 th century colonialism, but one can find its proxies in the debates regarding the principles of distinction and proportionality when defining legitimate targets. Its specters appeared in the discussions weighing human life and moderating warfare, revealing how the imperatives of colonial conquest inflected “ humanitarian reason ” and its epistemic and political investments. The colonized territory rendered all civilians as potential human shields merely by existing there. The colonizer/colonized distinction trumped the civilian/combatant distinction and exposed the radical instability of the principles defining the notion of human shields; the colonizer seldom thought he had reached the threshold of disproportionality in violence against the colonized. Instead, the “civilizing mission” rendered the colonized body perennially vulnerable
Ancient history · Biology · Colonialism · Combatant · CONQUEST · Environmental ethics · Human life · Political science · Politics · Shields · Sociology · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · History · Law · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.4 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2016 - 2026 (11) |
| Highly cited | No |