Brian Drohan
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781501714658
- eISBN:
- 9781501714672
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501714658.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Conflict Politics and Policy
This study seeks to bring international histories of human rights into closer dialogue with military histories of insurgent movements and counterinsurgency warfare. Both military historians and ...
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This study seeks to bring international histories of human rights into closer dialogue with military histories of insurgent movements and counterinsurgency warfare. Both military historians and historians of human rights have largely ignored the role of rights activists in shaping wartime policies and practices. This book examines the effects of human rights activism during British counterinsurgency campaigns in Cyprus (1955-1959), Aden (1963-1967), and Northern Ireland (emphasizing 1969-1976). The book argues that in response to human rights activism, British officials developed new ways of covering up their abuses by denying allegations, deflecting criticism, and evading attempts to enforce accountability. Consequently, activists’ efforts and government responses to them linked the metaphorical battlefield of law, diplomacy, propaganda, and public opinion with the physical battlefield of ambushes, house searches, arrests, and interrogations. Focusing the analytical lens on activists and the officials with whom they interacted places human rights activists on the counterinsurgency “battlefield”—not as traditional arms-bearing combatants, but as actors who nonetheless influenced counterinsurgency policies and practices.Less
This study seeks to bring international histories of human rights into closer dialogue with military histories of insurgent movements and counterinsurgency warfare. Both military historians and historians of human rights have largely ignored the role of rights activists in shaping wartime policies and practices. This book examines the effects of human rights activism during British counterinsurgency campaigns in Cyprus (1955-1959), Aden (1963-1967), and Northern Ireland (emphasizing 1969-1976). The book argues that in response to human rights activism, British officials developed new ways of covering up their abuses by denying allegations, deflecting criticism, and evading attempts to enforce accountability. Consequently, activists’ efforts and government responses to them linked the metaphorical battlefield of law, diplomacy, propaganda, and public opinion with the physical battlefield of ambushes, house searches, arrests, and interrogations. Focusing the analytical lens on activists and the officials with whom they interacted places human rights activists on the counterinsurgency “battlefield”—not as traditional arms-bearing combatants, but as actors who nonetheless influenced counterinsurgency policies and practices.
