Contemporary Authors

• Listening for a Change: Oral Testimony and Development Panos Publications (London, England), 1993
• Doing the Right Thing: Relief Agencies, Moral Dilemmas, and Moral Responsibility in Political Emergencies and War Nordiska Afrikainstitutet (Uppsala, Sweden), 1997
• Killing Civilians: Method, Madness, and Morality in War Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 2008
• Humanitarian Ethics: A Guide to the Morality of Aid in War and Disaster Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2015

5/8/17, 11(27 AM 1. Humanitarian ethics : a guide to the morality of aid in war and disaster LCCN Type of material Personal name Main title Published/Produced Description ISBN Links Shelf Location CALL NUMBER Request in 2015303319 Book Slim, Hugo, author. Humanitarian ethics : a guide to the morality of aid in war and disaster / Hugo Slim. New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2015. xii, 300 pages ; 22 cm. 0190264837 9780190264833 Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1604/2015303319-b.html Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1604/2015303319-d.html Table of contents only http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1604/2015303319-t.html FLS2016 034556 HV553 .S565 2015 OVERFLOWJ34 Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLS2) 2. Killing civilians : method, madness, and morality in war LCCN Type of material Personal name Main title Published/Created Description ISBN Links CALL NUMBER Request in CALL NUMBER Request in 2007048042 Book Slim, Hugo. Killing civilians : method, madness, and morality in war / Hugo Slim. New York : Columbia University Press, c2008. viii, 319 p. ; 23 cm. 9780231700368 (cloth : alk. paper) 0231700369 (cloth : alk. paper) Table of contents only http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip085/2007048042.html Book review (H-Net) http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=23113 U21.2 .S595 2008 Copy 1 Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms U21.2 .S595 2008 LANDOVR Copy 2 Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/printResults.do Page 1 of 3 5/8/17, 11(27 AM 3. Listening for a change : oral testimony and community development LCCN Type of material Personal name Main title Published/Created Description ISBN CALL NUMBER Request in CALL NUMBER Request in 94033736 Book Slim, Hugo. Listening for a change : oral testimony and community development / Hugo Slim and Paul Thomson ; contributing editors, Olivia Bennett and Nigel Cross. Philadelphia, PA : New Society Publishers, c1995. 167p.:ill.;23cm. 0865713030 : 0865713049 (pbk.) : D16.14 .S58 1995 Copy 1 Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms D16.14 .S58 1995 FT MEADE Copy 2 Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE 4. Listening for a change : oral testimony and development LCCN Type of material Personal name Main title Published/Created Description ISBN CALL NUMBER Request in 94167507 Book Slim, Hugo. Listening for a change : oral testimony and development / Hugo Slim and Paul Thompson ; contributing editors, Olivia Bennett and Nigel Cross. London : Panos Publications, [1993] viii,167p.:ill.;21cm. 1870670310 D16.14 .S58 1993 Copy 1 Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms 5. Doing the right thing : relief agencies, moral dilemmas, and moral responsibility in political emergencies and war LCCN Type of material Personal name Main title Published/Created 97214111 Book Slim, Hugo. Doing the right thing : relief agencies, moral dilemmas, and moral responsibility in political emergencies and war / by Hugo Slim. Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1997. https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/printResults.do Page 2 of 3 5/8/17, 11(27 AM Description ISBN CALL NUMBER Request in 18 p. ; 30 cm. 9171064079 HV553 .S56 1997 Copy 1 Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ONLINE CATALOG Library of Congress 101 Independence Ave., SE Washington, DC 20540 Questions? Ask a Librarian: https://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-contactus.html https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/printResults.do Page 3 of 3

• Author Homepage / biography / books / publications - http://www.hugoslim.com

  Welcome to the

  website of

  Dr Hugo Slim

  Dr Hugo Slim is a leading international academic in humanitarian studies. His work has a particular focus on the ethics of war, the protection of civilians and the morality and practice of humanitarian action.
  Hugo’s academic work and publications fall into five main areas:

  Theoretical and practical thinking around the protection of civilians in war
  Practical writing about the ethics and art of humanitarian fieldwork
  Particular articles about civil-military relations in humanitarian operations
  Guidance about mediation and peace processes to end civil wars
  A variety of publications about participatory development practice
  In all his work, Hugo attempts to bring practical ethical thinking to bear on the difficult moral and operational challenges of humanitarian action. He specializes in an easy and accessible writing style and aims to reach a wide audience, including: humanitarian workers; human rights activists; military personnel; politicians; peace activists and concerned members of the general public.

  ===

  BIOGRAPHY

  Hugo was born in England in 1961. He was educated at St John’s College Oxford where he read Theology from 1980-83.
  In the early part of his career, from 1983-1994, Hugo worked as an international humanitarian worker with Save the Children UK and the United Nations in Sudan, Ethiopia, Morocco, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Bangladesh.
  In 1994, Hugo became an academic at Oxford Brookes University where he co-directed an award-winning Masters programme for humanitarian workers with Professor Nabeel Hamdi from 1994-2003.
  During this time, Hugo became a consultant to many of the western world’s leading international NGOs. He was also on the Council of Oxfam GB from 1998-2004 and an International Adviser to the British Red Cross from 1997-2004. He received his PhD in humanitarian ethics from Oxford Brookes University in 2002.
  In 2003, Hugo was appointed Chief Scholar at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva – Switzerland’s leading conflict resolution organization mediating between governments and armed groups in civil wars where he led HD’s research work on the protection of civilians and helped develop HD’s thinking on mediation and peace processes.
  Hugo returned to the UK in 2007 and developed a commercial consultancy practice advising a number of FTSE 100 companies on conflict resolution and human rights.
  Hugo was Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC) at the University of Oxford from 2011-2015 and is currently Head of Policy at the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva.

  ===

  BOOKS

  HUMANITARIAN ETHICS

  "A remarkable contribution..,this book should be read and reread by everyone involved in humanitarian action in headquarters, field capitals and on the ground."
  Dr Fiona Terry, International Review of the Red Cross, 2016.

  KILLING CIVILIANS

  “This is a clear, impartial, honest work. It is scholarly yet free of jargon, compassionate yet not over-emotional, moral without being preachy, stuffed with facts and figures yet brought alive by a myriad of vivid historical, contemporary and personal anecdotes. In short, it is very good.”
  The Economist

  "Slim's unflinching examination of the horror visited on civilians in times of war engages deeply and rationally with the question of war and its limits, drilling to the core of armed conflict and concentrating on the question of protecting innocents."
  John Birmingham in The Australian Literary Review

  “Skillfully weaves history and psychology together with a sense of contemporary mission. Slim cites shocking eyewitness reports of murder and torture of civilians from wars around the world, tallying ways in which killers come to kill, and the excuses that governments make for them.”
  The Guardian

  "With painful and poignant examples, Slim describes extermination, planned massacres, rape and the famine and disease associated with war. This is more than a collection of horror stories, let alone a pacifist tract. Slim understands why wars sometimes must be fought and struggles to think of ways to assert the core principle that "even in war, one should kill as little as possible." Any attempt to carve out a humanitarian space in the midst of bitter conflicts faces tough challenges, but Slim's book is an important reminder of why it is vital to try."
  Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman in Foreign Affairs

  "Slim's readable and instructive book brings a refreshing and original eye to a difficult theme, the solution can only come from "hard and courageous moral choices". The safety of civilians lies not in debates over weapons, but in political will, the express decision not to target and kill civilians."
  Caroline Moorehead in The Literary Review

  "In this valuable book, Slim meticulously surveys the varieties of ideologies and motivations that lead to the intentional killing (rape and
  wounding) of civilians. And he argues further that it is not only false but counter-productive simply to insist that civilians are all 'innocent' in any meaningful sense. In fact, one of the book's contributions is to face - indeed, to emphasize - 'civilian ambiguity'. Without blinking at the grim reality he manages to offer hope and practical steps towards enhanced protection from violence for the most vulnerable."
  Professor Henry Shue in International Affairs

  ===

  PUBLICATIONS

  You can download some of these publications in pdf format.

• Oxford Institute for Ethics Law and Armed Combat - http://www.elac.ox.ac.uk/people/Hugo_Slim.html

  Hugo Slim

  Former Associate Director and Senior Research Fellow, ELAC

  Biography

  Dr Hugo Slim is a leading scholar in humanitarian studies with particular expertise in humanitarian ethics, the protection of civilians, conflict resolution, and business ethics. From 1983-1994 he worked as a frontline humanitarian worker for Save the Children UK and the United Nations in Morocco, Sudan and Ethiopia, the Palestinian Territories and Bangladesh. In 1994 he was appointed Reader in International Humanitarianism at Oxford Brookes University where he co-founded an award winning Masters programme for international humanitarian workers. From 2003-2007 he was Chief Scholar at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva, leading policy work on civilian protection and political mediation.

  Hugo is an ELAC Associate Director and Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Relations. He is currently leading research on Humanitarian Ethics that will deliver the first major practical text on humanitarian ethics in war and disaster, and develop professional ethics in humanitarian organizations to new standards of care and accountability. He has also established The Oxford Humanitarian Group (OHG) within ELAC, a new inter-disciplinary discussion group for humanitarian studies that brings together the University of Oxford, Oxford Brookes University and Oxfam.

  Research Interests
  Hugo’s research focuses on humanitarian ethics, civilian protection and business and human rights.

  Media Expertise
  Frequent commentator on humanitarian action in print and on TV and radio, including:
  BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, and Moral Maze
  BBC World Service Radio
  BBC Radio 3 Nightwaves
  Articles in The Guardian

  Consultancy and Advisory Work
  Hugo has advised many of the world’s leading humanitarian agencies, including UNOCHA, UNWFP, the International Committee of the Red Cross, AusAid and many leading NGOs. He has advised global businesses including BP, Rio Tinto, G4S and Vodafone on political risk, conflict resolution and human rights in Africa, Asia and Latin America. He has been on the board of Oxfam GB and an International Advisor to the British Red Cross, and is currently on the board of the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) and on the Editorial Board of the International Review of the Red Cross (Cambridge University Press).

  Teaching
  Hugo is an Associate Lecturer at the Graduate Institute in Geneva and a Visiting Professor at the University of Oregon and Oxford Brookes University where he teaches classes on humanitarian ethics, civilian protection, conflict resolution and business ethics.

  Publications
  Hugo has published more than sixty academic papers and his most recent books include: Essays in Humanitarian Action (ELAC/Kindle 2012); Killing Civilians: Method, Madness and Morality in War (Hurst/Columbia University Press 2008) and Protection: A Guide for Humanitarian Agencies (ALNAP and Oxfam 2005), Humanitarian Ethics. A Guide to the Morality of Aid in War and Disaster (Hurst & Company, 2015).

• The Circle of European Communicators - http://www.communicators-circle.eu/2015/03/02/hugo-slim/

  Head of Policy at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

  Dr Hugo Slim has recently been appointed as Head of Policy at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva where he leads the policy development for ICRC’s global humanitarian diplomacy.

  Hugo started his career as a frontline humanitarian worker for Save the Children and the United Nations working in Sudan, Ethiopia, Morocco, Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories. Before joining ICRC he was Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict at the University of Oxford. Previously he been Chief Scholar at the Centre of Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva and Reader in International Humanitarianism at Oxford Brookes University. He has been on the boards of Oxfam GB and the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD).

  Hugo’s books include: Humanitarian Ethics: A Guide to the Morality of Aid in War and Disaster (2015), Essays in Humanitarian Action (2012), Killing Civilians: Method, Madness and Morality in War (2007), and Protection: A Guide for Humanitarian Agencies (2005).

  Applying humanitarian principles to secure access to populations in need, 2013

5/8/17, 11(29 AM
Print Marked Items
Off the shelf
R.E. Henstrand
Joint Force Quarterly.
.54 (July 2009): p136. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2009 National Defense University http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jfq/jfq.htm
Full Text:
Given the increasing incidence of insurgency, terrorism, piracy, and other threats from nonstate actors across the globe, a wealth of scholarly investigation and analysis into the tradition of just war and the use of military force is being produced. Here are several of the more recent volumes that military and interagency leaders should find useful.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A Moral Military: Revised and Expanded Edition, with a New
Chapter on Torture
by Sidney Axinn
Philadelphia: Temple University
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Press, 2009
256 pp. $74.50
ISBN: 978-1-59213-957-6
Sidney Axinn has updated and expanded the original 1990 version of his classic on morality in military activity. In a readable style, Axinn covers the gamut of ethical and moral problems associated with the military and conduct of war, ranging from whether a Soldier should ever disobey an order, to the use of torture, nuclear weapons, and restrictions on how to fight. One of the book's many strengths is its organization into easily consumed chapters and sections that can be quickly referenced with the detailed table of contents or index.
A Moral Military is a veritable handbook on the moral conduct of war that will help leaders formulate acceptable plans and make principled decisions in this new era of fighting terrorists and irregular conflicts. It should be mandatory reading for military leaders, national security strategists, and policymakers.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Waging Humanitarian War:
The Ethics, Law, and Politics of Humanitarian Intervention
by Eric A. Heinze
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Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009
224 pp. $65.00
ISBN: 978-0-7914-7695-6
In recent decades, the U.S. military has participated in United Nations, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and unilateral peace and humanitarian assistance operations. Why? When should the United States initiate such operations? When are we morally compelled to do so? Does U.S. support of an international effort to relieve suffering or reinstate peace or stability matter? What are the effects of such operations? Eric Heinze explores these and other tough questions in this examination of the ethical, legal, and political dimensions of military intervention for humanitarian reasons. Heinze uses the NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999, 2003 invasion of Iraq, and crisis in Darfur as case studies. He acknowledges that waging humanitarian war is always a risky proposition and one that is not likely to solve underlying problems such as ethnic hatred, poverty, or poor governance. Heinze concludes that the use of the military element of national power may still be mandated, requested, or otherwise required, but should only be undertaken when it will not, in the long run, make the situation worse.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Ethics and International
Affairs: A Reader, Third Edition Edited by Joel H. Rosenthal and Christian Barry
Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2009
368 pp. $34.95
ISBN: 978-1-58901-272-1
This volume, written for use in the study of international relations, ethics, foreign policy, and related fields, offers an entry-level set of readings offering insights into the debates surrounding these issues. The book is organized into four parts: conflict and resolution; grounds for intervention; governance, law, and membership; and global economic justice. To meet their objective of providing "normative, empirical discussions and studies ... of international issues ... uppermost in reader's minds," the editors have compiled essays on topics of immediate importance including preventive war, humanitarian intervention, legitimacy of global governance institutions, and international organizations. The take-away for military leaders, strategists, and policymakers is a basic indoctrination on how moral
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theory can inform strategies and policy choices. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Renegotiation of the Just War
Tradition and the Right to War
in the Twenty-First Century
by Cian O'Driscoll
New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008
244 pp. $79.95
ISBN: 978-0-230-60583-1
Using the invasion of Iraq as context for a broad discussion of the just war theory and tradition, Cian O'Driscoll concludes that "the tradition may be fairly depicted as moving toward a broader jus ad bellum than was typical throughout the latter half of the twentieth century." O'Driscoll recognizes that the 21st-century spectrum of conflict has expanded to include unilateral and coalition use of force against nonstate actors and in a broader set of situations, such as humanitarian relief. He compares contemporary approaches to topics such as anticipatory war, punitive war, and humanitarian intervention with traditional jus ad bellum thinking. O'Driscoll provides a thorough and serious examination of such changes in the just war tradition, and this book will help commanders, planners, strategists, and policymakers to more critically examine contingency planning and war plans in the 21st century.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Killing Civilians: Method, Madness, and Morality in War by Hugo Slim
New York: Columbia University Press, 2008
300 pp. $29.95
ISBN: 978-0-231-70036-8
What is a civilian?" asks Hugo Slim, a scholar of humanitarian studies, in this book. Noting that international law has never defined the term and that the Geneva Conventions only describe what a civilian is not, Slim examines the notion in the international community that unarmed and innocent people deserve protection in war. He leaves no stone unturned in his discussion of the practice by states and nonstate actors throughout history of killing, pillaging, plundering, raping, and displacing noncombatants. Slim deftly examines ideologies that allow and even encourage wanton abuse or killing of noncombatants and exposes the thought processes that seek to justify perpetrating what today we call crimes against humanity. He compares the horrific to the acceptable and discusses why some forms of killing civilians are considered justifiable. Slim argues that killing civilians in war is almost always immoral and all practical measures to avoid it should be rigorously applied. In the end, he admits that acts of violence against civilians may be an immutable aspect of war and the human condition and that the best we might hope for is to reduce its
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incidence through greater understanding of the motivations behind it. Henstrand, R.E.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Henstrand, R.E. "Off the shelf." Joint Force Quarterly, July 2009, p. 136+. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA201712346&it=r&asid=781ef5a4a47cb875d7960726ab4bbbcd. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A201712346
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How best to protect them; Civilians in war
The Economist.
386.8567 (Feb. 16, 2008): p92(US). From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2008 Economist Intelligence Unit N.A. Incorporated http://store.eiu.com/
Full Text:
Wrong place, wrong time
THE idea of a limited war, in whichcertain groups of people should beprotected, is not new. In the fourth century St Augustine was already advocating the doctrine of a "just war", based on civilian protection, proportionality and restraint. The same principles were enshrined inthe 1949 Geneva Conventions and in the mandates of the various internationaltribunals set up over the past 15 years. Yet the moral ideal of civilian protectionremains very much a minority view.
As Hugo Slim explains in "Killing Civilians", marking out a special category of people called "civilians" from the wider enemy group in war "is a distinction that is not, and never has been, either clear, meaningful or right" for many perpetrators of war--nor even for many civilians themselves. A former humanitarian field-worker, Mr Slim is now chief scholar at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Switzerland. In this book he begins by examining in great and gory detail the appalling ways in which civilians have suffered in wars down the ages--by rape, massacre, torture, mutilation, famine, disease, trauma and so on. He goes on to lookat why unarmed, supposedly harmlesscivilians so often turn out to be thevictims in war.
The reasons, he suggests, include a desire to exterminate an entire group of purportedly inferior beings (genocide); a lust for power and domination (Genghis Khan); a thirst for revenge (as in so many of today's African wars); necessity (claimed by Palestinian suicide-bombers in their "asymmetrical" war against Israel); or plunder (common in the past, but rarer today). Civilians may also be killed or wounded through calculated recklessness (as when Israeli bulldozers raze Palestinian homes) or the inevitable accidents that are associated with inaccurate weapons ("collateral damage").
But who qualifies as a civilian? International law provides only a negative description: someone who is not a member of the armed forces, who does not carry a weapon, who does not take part in hostilities. This is clearly inadequate. An estimated 60% of the world's weapons-bearers are civilians (hunters, for example). On the other hand, many of those who do not carry arms (or wear uniforms) may be very much part of the war effort--ammunition workers, porters, victuallers and the like. And what of the ideologues whose hate-filled doctrines fuel the conflict, the newspaper editors who disseminate the propaganda or the taxpayers who pay for the war? Should they be afforded specialprotection when the unwilling teenage conscript is not?
As Mr Slim himself concedes, there are rarely totally innocent bystanders in wartime. Osama bin Laden deems all the citizens of any democracy that goes to war to be "non-innocent"--and therefore legitimate targets--because their political systems allow them to choose their leaders and thus to choose their wars. Although Mr Slim would not go that far, he agrees that it is a "fallacy" to suggest that all civilians are equally harmless in wartime. But, he argues (not totally convincingly), "it is a necessary fallacy if we are to try to limit the killing in war."
Although most people the world over say they prefer non-violence, ordinary people can get sucked into organised violence with relative ease, Mr Slim notes. Psychological studies, such as the one Stanley Milgram carried out at Yale University and published in 1974, have repeatedly shown that, given certain conditions, 80% of most populations will eithercollude or directly take part in acts ofviolence. Only 10% will refuse outright, while another 10% will actively resist.
Some of the conditions that turn people into killers are well known: extreme coercion, obedience to authority, dehumanisation of the enemy, social bonding, hatred, indoctrination, revenge, survival. Alcohol, drugs, rituals,
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warpaint, even dark glasses can also help produce an "altered state" conducive to violence. Bloodletting can itself be intoxicating, even erotic. Mr Slim cites American soldiersin Vietnam saying that killing was like"getting screwed for the first time",producing "an ache as profound as the ache of an orgasm".
In the last part of the book, Mr Slim suggests ways in which others may be converted to the ideology of limited warfare with its central concern of civilian protection. Simply repeating that civilian suffering is illegal and wrong, as many human-rights groups tend to do, will do little to change potential perpetrators, he says. Appeals should rather be made to their self-interest, sense of fairness, even to old-fashioned virtues like mercy and honour. Some hope. Even Mr Slim admits the likelihood of success is slender.
This is a clear, impartial, honest work.It is scholarly yet free of jargon, compassionate yet not over-emotional, moral without being preachy, stuffed with facts and figures yet brought alive by a myriad of vivid historical, contemporary and personal anecdotes. In short, it is very good.
Killing Civilians: Method, Madness and Morality in War. By Hugo Slim
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"How best to protect them; Civilians in war." The Economist, 16 Feb. 2008, p. 92(US). PowerSearch,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA174762932&it=r&asid=de74e6b0c7b78c4e79df7850b7932841. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A174762932
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Killing Civilians: Method, Madness, and Morality in War
Lawrence D. Freedman
Foreign Affairs.
87.5 (September-October 2008): p169. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2008 Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. http://www.foreignaffairs.org
Full Text:
Killing Civilians: Method, Madness, and Morality in War. BY HUGO SLIM. Columbia University Press, 2008, 300 pp. $29.95.
Slim explores the problem of restraint in war by considering how civilians can be spared its ravages. With painful and poignant examples, he describes deliberate extermination, planned massacres, rape, and the famine and disease associated with war. This is more than a collection of horror stories, let alone a pacifist tract. Slim understands why wars sometimes must be fought and that attempts are often made to try to spare civilians unnecessary harm, and he grasps how the moral force of the civil-military distinction is soon undermined by the brutish logic of war, especially in these days of asymmetric war, when insurgents are constantly trying to draw regular forces into civilian areas. Lacking confidence in appeals to humanitarian law, he struggles to think of ways to assert the core principle that "even in war, one should kill as little as possible." He explores the possibility of appeals to self-interest, fairness, and mercy. Any attempt to carve out a humanitarian space in the midst of bitter conflicts faces tough challenges, but Slim's book is an important reminder of why it is vital to try.
Freedman, Lawrence D.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Freedman, Lawrence D. "Killing Civilians: Method, Madness, and Morality in War." Foreign Affairs, Sept.-Oct. 2008,
p. 169. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA184231034&it=r&asid=f20ea38caee7ba580756d9d4016953c8. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A184231034
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Killing Civilians: Method, Madness and Morality in War
World War II.
23.4 (October-November 2008): p75. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2008 World History Group, LLC http://www.historynet.com/
Full Text:
Killing Civilians
Method, Madness and Morality in War
By Hugo Slim. 300 pp. Columbia University
Press, 2008. $29.95.
Who is a civilian? And what does it mean? Slim, former chief scholar at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, analyzes with passionate, unflinching intellectual intensity.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Killing Civilians: Method, Madness and Morality in War." World War II, Oct.-Nov. 2008, p. 75. PowerSearch,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA213308211&it=r&asid=06b7f155135fe79810dc559cd555e23c. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A213308211
about:blank Page 9 of 10
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Listening for a Change
Workbook.
20 (Summer 1995): p89. From Book Review Index Plus.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Listening for a Change." Workbook, Summer 1995, p. 89. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA34449971&it=r&asid=4d185fb7ffe559536b35f9ca613992c4. Accessed 8 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A34449971
about:blank Page 10 of 10

Henstrand, R.E. "Off the shelf." Joint Force Quarterly, July 2009, p. 136+. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA201712346&it=r. Accessed 8 May 2017. "How best to protect them; Civilians in war." The Economist, 16 Feb. 2008, p. 92(US). PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA174762932&it=r. Accessed 8 May 2017. Freedman, Lawrence D. "Killing Civilians: Method, Madness, and Morality in War." Foreign Affairs, Sept.-Oct. 2008, p. 169. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA184231034&it=r. Accessed 8 May 2017. "Killing Civilians: Method, Madness and Morality in War." World War II, Oct.-Nov. 2008, p. 75. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA213308211&it=r. Accessed 8 May 2017. "Listening for a Change." Workbook, Summer 1995, p. 89. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA34449971&it=r. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• International Review of the Red Cross
  https://www.icrc.org/en/download/file/19034/irc_97_1-2-22.pdf
  Word count: 3067

  Humanitarian Ethics: A Guide to the Morality of Aid in War and Disaster
  Hugo Slim*
  Book review by Fiona Terry, an independent researcher who has completed studies for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Sudan and Afghanistan. She holds a doctorate in international relations from the Australian National University, and is the author of Condemned to Repeat? The Paradox of Humanitarian Action (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, and London, 2002).
  As the humanitarian enterprise faces some of its toughest challenges in trying to help people suffering from an unprecedented number of simultaneous conflicts and disasters around the world, Hugo Slim’s new book Humanitarian Ethics: A Guide to the Morality of Aid in War and Disaster takes us on a fascinating journey into the heart of what it is we are trying to do, why we are doing it, and how. His deeply insightful examination of humanitarian ethics unpacks the values behind the humanitarian endeavour, the moral tensions that arise in carrying it out, and the ways in which humanitarian individuals and organizations can think through these issues and strive to act in the most responsible way they can.
  At a time when many humanitarian veterans struggle to see their passion and commitment to humanitarian ideals reflected in a newer generation of often career-minded, corporate-thinking aid executives, Slim offers a vital reminder of the sentiments that gave birth to humanitarianism, how these have been formalized and put into practice over the past few decades, and how tendencies
  * Published by Hurst & Company, London, 2015.
  © icrc 2015 469
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  to expand conceptions of humanitarian action into peacebuilding and the defence of human rights can compromise efforts to uphold the essential goal of saving lives and preserving dignity.
  In keeping with his positive persona, Slim’s tone throughout the book is one of optimism and encouragement, and he chides authors – including myself – who have emphasized the ethical pitfalls of humanitarian action. “The proper focus of humanitarian ethics should rest on how to be a good humanitarian worker, not on how to avoid being a bad one .... [T]he call to do good is a much more positive professional motivation than the more censorious call to avoid doing harm”, according to Slim.1 He manages to sustain an even-handed commentary throughout the book, even when describing some of the most ethically problematic aspects of the aid industry, such as the disparity in treatment of national and international staff in, for example, medical or security evacuation protocols, or in the huge salaries and lavish lifestyle enjoyed by many United Nations (UN) personnel while working for the world’s most vulnerable and dispossessed. But while I admire Slim’s inspirational approach, I believe that his book should become the indispensable vade mecum of every humanitarian agency because such organizations often do not think clearly enough about what they are doing, how they are doing it, and the consequences for the populations they profess to assist as well as for other agencies who share the “humanitarian” label.
  The major contribution of this book is to demystify the subject of ethics, to provide a clear and logical explanation of the ethical framework guiding humanitarian action, and to offer insight on how to balance competing principles or values according to the operating context on the ground. Although aid organizations are constantly making ethical decisions in the way that they decide which members of the population to prioritize or how much risk to take, these choices are rarely framed in the language of ethics. So, as Slim points out, for those aid agencies not used to hearing problems raised in these terms – which in my experience is the majority–an “ethical” problem immediately takes on dramatic importance and leads “unnecessarily into a predicament of extreme options” in an agency’s thinking.2 I have found that even within those organizations that do think about ethics, this is not always done in an informed or structured manner, and humanitarian principles are recited as a mantra and treated as moral absolutes. A tragic example of this occurred in Somalia, where an aid worker refused an offer from the African Union Forces (AMISOM) to take his seriously wounded colleague to the AMISOM hospital because his agency was “independent”. After delays in finding an alternative vehicle in the commotion, the wounded man was taken to a local hospital, where he died in surgery. Slim provides a refreshingly clear and lucid discussion on how to interpret the best meaning of humanitarian principles in a given context and how to balance this
  1 Humanitarian Ethics, p. 7.
  2 Ibid., p. 156.
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  with ethical practices of deliberation, good judgement and practical wisdom in order to decide on the best course of action.
  The book is divided into three parts, which are cleverly woven together to give maximum clarity to the concepts raised. Part 1 explores the ethical foundations of humanitarian action, tracing how some of the great philosophers, such as Aristotle, David Hume, Thomas Acquinas, Paul Ricoeur and Peter Singer, explain the humanitarian impulses of compassion, empathy and a sense of responsibility for the plight of distant strangers. Part 2 then looks at the modern elaboration of humanitarian principles, beginning with the four core principles of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence) and then explaining some of the thirty-three other principles that Slim identifies as influencing the thought and actions of this vast “humanitarian” sector.3
  The way Slim has organized the discussion of these principles helps enormously in breaking down some of the misconceptions and stereotypes around them. Humanity and impartiality are identified as the goal of humanitarian action, and Slim goes to considerable lengths to dissect them into their component ideas. He considers, for instance, how we might ensure the “radical equality” proscribed by impartiality, and determine what fairness in the provision of humanitarian aid might be. Neutrality and independence are presented as the “political principles”, thereby firmly establishing their roles as operational postures that facilitate “being inside a conflict without being problematically invested in it”,4 rather than as values to honour in themselves. Slim then explores what he terms the “dignity principles” of participation, empowerment and respect that feature in the Code of Conduct for aid agencies in disaster relief, pointing out some of the strengths and weaknesses found in their application in different contexts. Here his discussion on the dignified representation of aid recipients through respectful imagery in fundraising materials and his objection to condescending yet ubiquitous labels such as “beneficiary” strike an important cord. Lastly, he considers sustainability and accountability to be “stewardship principles”, guiding humanitarians to use their resources wisely and assuming responsibility for their actions in the immediate and longer term.
  In the same chapter, Slim also identifies some of the structural weaknesses of the humanitarian sector which have compromised efforts to increase the accountability of humanitarian actors, particularly the continued dominance of accountability upwards to donors rather than to the people whom agencies profess to help, and the continued lack of regulation of the humanitarian sector: “no party, whether donor, agency, local authority or recipient community, is under real external scrutiny to see if and how they are making the most of aid and abiding by humanitarian law and principles in its application”.5
  3 These principles are listed on p. 40, and are divided into four categories according to their main raison d’être (“principles in law”; “principles of action”, “principles of dignity, participation and stewardship”, and “principles of effectiveness”).
  4 Humanitarian Ethics, p. 66.
  5 Ibid., p. 107.
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  Part 3 examines what it means to make ethical decisions on the ground, exploring many of the factors that influence the choices made by individuals and agencies. Chapter 7 tackles the role of reason and emotion in decision-making, and Chapter 8 examines what ethical deliberation might look like. But it is in Chapters 9, 10 and 11 that I think aid workers will find the most interest, as Slim unpacks the basic structure of moral choices from those that are obvious, those that require compromise, those that create a slippery slope, those that involve suspending a moral norm for a wider moral good, and those that constitute a genuine moral dilemma where one must choose between two equally bad options. Chapter 10 then addresses the crucial question of how we assess where moral responsibility lies, which requires consideration of a whole range of factors. These include the level of agency or involvement that an individual or organization had in an act; the intention behind the action; the motives of the actor; the level of knowledge or ignorance at the actor’s disposal; the capacity of the actor, for one can only be held responsible for what one can realistically do; the mitigation measures that were engaged to limit the worst effects of the action; and the quality and quantity of deliberation undertaken before deciding on a particular course of action.
  In Chapter 11, Slim gives us a stronger glimpse into his moral reasoning as he examines some of the persistent ethical problems that arise in the course of humanitarian operations, applying the ideas and principles developed in earlier chapters to specific problems encountered in various contexts. And it is here that we can most clearly see how two individuals or organizations can face the same moral problems in the same context and yet make very different decisions on how to respond to them, depending on which principles and values they prioritize and what information they choose to include in their ethical deliberation. Slim takes issue with what he considers are exaggerated claims against aid organizations of ethical responsibility for harm inflicted on populations in several morally problematic aid operations, such as the response to the Ethiopian famine in 1984–1985 and war and displacement in Darfur from 2004 to 2011. He rightly points to humanitarians only ever having a secondary responsibility in events caused by political and military actors, and makes a convincing case – drawing on the work of Chiara Lepora and Robert Goodin6 – for how the charge of aid agency “complicity” in wrongdoing is exaggerated when we dig deeper into what this notion really means. It is difficult to cite an instance where aid organizations plotted or colluded with political or military actors in oppressing, displacing or otherwise harming a community, and the most they can be charged with are contributing roles in some wrongdoing like, for example, lending legitimacy to some unjust action through participation in it, even if only to mitigate its worst effects. Moreover, as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) knows only too well, it is sometimes necessary to be associated with wrongdoing in some way in order to achieve a
  6 Chiara Lepora and Robert E. Goodin, On Complicity and Compromise, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013.
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  greater humanitarian good: drinking beer with Interahamwe killers manning checkpoints during the Rwandan genocide allowed ICRC delegates to get ambulances carrying wounded Tutsis through to the hospital.
  But where Slim is less convincing is in his treatment of cases where aid might be doing more harm than good, where it is actually turned against those it is intended to assist. He acknowledges that Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) Rony Brauman might be right in principle that in certain cases abstention or withdrawal may be preferable to action, but says that this “is a hard principle to enact without genuine consent from the affected population”.7 So in the case of the Rwandan refugee camps in which aid was used by perpetrators of genocide to control the population and finance their military preparations for an attack on Rwanda, he argues that the responsibility of humanitarian agencies was one of mitigation only: “to find the best way to minimize the worst effects of aid theft and taxes, while still continuing to meet their primary responsibility to save lives and protect people”.8
  Two important elements seem to be overlooked in this analysis. The first is to question whether humanitarian aid was indispensable to the survival of these refugees, a point first raised by Alex de Waal in his work on Sudan.9 Aid agencies have a vested interest in pitching humanitarian assistance as the difference between life and death, but there is increasing acknowledgement in research findings of the important yet often overlooked role of local communities in their own survival. These refugees were not kept behind barbed wire, and indeed many of them left the camps and returned to Rwanda in the first months of the aid operation. Moreover, humanitarian organizations failed in any efforts to protect these refugees, either from their leaders whilst in the camps or from the brutal attack that dismantled the camps in late 1996, as Slim suggests was one of their two primary responsibilities. This violence was not only predictable but had actually been threatened by Rwandan president Paul Kagame several months before it took place. I feel that aid organizations needed to recalibrate their moral priorities under such circumstances.
  The second issue follows from the first: what level of responsibility do aid recipients hold for their own predicament and survival? Empowerment of local communities is a strong value explored in this book, but should not their own agency be taken more into account in deliberating what to do when aid is clearly part of the problem? This question extends beyond the Rwandan case and is highly pertinent to Somalia today. MSF made the very difficult decision to close its projects in Somalia in 2013 as a result of numerous violent attacks on its members over twenty-two years of continuous operations in the war-torn country, the latest of which occurred with either the active involvement or tacit
  7 Humanitarian Ethics, p. 204.
  8 Ibid., p. 186.
  9 De Waal argues that relief is generally merely a footnote to the story of how people survive famine. Alex de
  Waal, Famine Crimes: Politics and the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa, Africa Rights and International African Institute in association with James Currey and Indiana University Press, Oxford and Bloomington, IN, 1997, p. 1.
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  Book review
  acceptance of Somali communities – even those directly benefiting from MSF’s medical services. Without respect for the most fundamental idea that “we help you and you don’t harm us”, MSF felt that it was impossible to continue. After nearly two years of absence, however, and a serious deterioration in the state of the health sector, MSF is investigating ways to return at the strong behest of Somali leaders and communities, and of other aid agencies. But imbuing Somali leaders with a sense of responsibility for the safety of humanitarian workers and proper use of resources remains a major challenge. After all, the head of an important Somali NGO that was found by a UN internal investigation10 to have fraudulently claimed or was unable to substantiate spending of nearly 80% of $2.9 million allocated to emergency food and water during the 2011 famine is today a senior adviser to the president of one of Somalia’s regional administrations. Somalis are aware of these accusations, yet no one seems prepared to hold him to account for depriving his compatriots of millions of dollars of emergency aid.
  It is precisely in providing practitioners and students with tools with which to think through these real-life moral problems from various angles that Slim’s book is a remarkable contribution to the humanitarian sector. Although Slim is sympathetic to the desires of some aid agencies to stretch the bounds of humanitarian action and do more to address the causes of suffering, he is clear that the responsibility of humanitarian action is first and foremost to alleviate it:
  There is no greater goal beyond the person in humanitarian action: not peace, not democracy, not religious conversion; not socialism; not political Islam; and not military victory... the defining goal of humanitarian action is to save and protect individual lives so that they have an opportunity to flourish. It is not to determine how they should flourish and to organise that flourishing.11
  The post-2002 aid operation in Afghanistan clearly illustrated that those agencies who steered their action towards determining how Afghans should flourish undermined the neutrality of humanitarian action and found themselves unable to fulfil their primary purpose of helping those in need, regardless of the side of the conflict on which they were found.12 It is a similar story in Somalia today, with those aid agencies perceived to be supporting one side rejected by the other to the detriment of all those in need. Aid agencies need to heed the messages conveyed in Slim’s book and forge a more coherent and consistent approach to their efforts to help people in these challenging times. If aid agencies do not make a clear choice about whether their aid should be neutral, impartial and
  10 Confidential UN investigations into three Somali NGOs were leaked to Fox News and published in January 2015. See George Russell, “Millions in UN Somalia Aid Diverted; Hints that Some Went to Terrorists”, Fox News, 20 January 2015, available at: www.foxnews.com/world/2015/01/20/millions-in- un-somalia-aid-diverted-hints-that-some-went-to-terrorists/ (last accessed in June 2015).
  11 Humanitarian Ethics, above note 1, p. 47.
  12 See Fiona Terry, “The International Committee of the Red Cross in Afghanistan: Reasserting the
  Neutrality of Humanitarian Action”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 93, No. 881, 2011, pp. 173–188.
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  independent, belligerents may well make the choice for them, considering them to be enemies and treating them accordingly.
  Humanitarian Ethics should be read and reread by everyone involved in humanitarian action in headquarters, in field capitals and on the ground. It does not provide answers to ethical quandaries, but rather, and more importantly, provides the tools necessary to think through what an ethically sound response to quandaries might be for individuals and organizations. It also restores meaning to many notions that have been reduced to mere slogans by the humanitarian enterprise. My only regret is that there were not more case studies unpacked from a variety of angles – the book introduces an abundance of examples, but usually to illustrate a specific point raised rather than from a holistic perspective. Perhaps such cases could be the subject of Volume 2?
  475

• Socialist Review
  http://socialistreview.org.uk/411/humanitarian-ethics
  Word count: 474

  Humanitarian Ethics

  Issue section: Books
  Issue: March 2016 (411)
  By
  Margaret Woods
  Humanitarian Ethics
  Hugo Slim
  Hurst
  £18.99
  Humanitarian Ethics book cover
  Hugo Slim describes himself as being in the tradition of liberal European Christian philosophy with little knowledge of other traditions of human thought. He nevertheless believes that the human urge to help others is universal.

  Slim traces European thought on the ethics of humanitarian action from Aristotle to Hobbes, Rousseau, Hume and to a number of modern writers. He describes the desire to help others changing through time from merely helping relatives to also helping neighbours to the present day where people help those far away who they do not know and will never meet. The definition he takes from these philosophers is that humanitarianism is the putting of value on every single human life for its own sake and the desire, because of empathy and compassion, to alleviate suffering and preserve lives.

  The book deals with the development of humanitarian aid since the end of the Second World War. Slim explains its grounding in various international human rights laws and treaties followed by the development of aims, objectives and codes of conduct by a growing number of professional national and international organisations.

  In part three he explores practice on the ground for both institutions and individual workers, referring back regularly to theoretical ethics in the process.

  He deals with most of the complex issues surrounding this subject, such as problems delivering large scale aid in war zones, negotiating with various sides for access to people in greatest need, and whether people in receipt of aid are consulted and included at every level in the process, including that of decision making. Slim also looks at how national aid workers from recipient countries are paid and treated compared with international workers who frequently have higher salaries, more powerful positions and better, safer accommodation.

  He believes the development of humanitarian aid to its present level is one of humanity’s greatest moral achievements, though he is critical of the sector’s problems and abuses, branding them unethical and anti-humanitarian. Nevertheless he does not really provide any solutions to these problems. It is unacceptable that people must remain for years in massive refugee camps. Salaries for organisations’ leaders are obscenely large. Who exactly will enforce change on these and other issues? Clearly there need to be political answers.

  The book is written for researchers and for professional aid workers and is scholarly but accessible to read. Despite a lack of answers to some major issues, it is an informative text worth the attention of academics and professionals, and also those considering volunteering in places where governments and large NGOs have been found wanting.

• H -net
  https://networks.h-net.org/node/12840/reviews/13422/mckeogh-slim-killing-civilians-method-madness-and-morality-war
  Word count: 1176

  McKeogh on Slim, 'Killing Civilians: Method, Madness, and Morality in War'

  Author:
  Hugo Slim
  Reviewer:
  Colm McKeogh

  Hugo Slim. Killing Civilians: Method, Madness, and Morality in War. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. viii + 319 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-70036-8.

  Reviewed by Colm McKeogh
  Published on H-War (December, 2008)
  Commissioned by Janet G. Valentine

  Promoting Pro-civilian Ideologies

  The idea that there are certain groups of people who should be spared the harm of war has been a persistent one in human consciousness. However, political and military leaders have not respected it in practice. "Normally," Hugo Slim points out bluntly in this book, "they have rejected it" (p. 2). This observation sets the scene for an overview of the reasons why civilians are killed in war. Backed by numerous historical cases, Slim rejects "the strange idea ... that civilians only really began to suffer massively in war during the last century ... when they were killed in large numbers by bombing" (p. 71). He puts the record straight with many examples (almost too many) from all continents and all eras of human history, showing how, in war, civilians have suffered killing, rape, forced movement, impoverishment, famine, disease, and distress--the "seven spheres of civilian suffering," as he terms them (p. 39). The harm done to civilians in war is immense. "In the destruction of war," he observes, "people can lose their identity, their sense of stability and certainty, routine and order. In many ways, they may also lose themselves. Socially and personally, they are no longer the people they were" (pp. 109-110). Why is such harm inflicted on civilians? Civilians may be killed and harmed in war as an end (extermination, subjugation, revenge, or collective punishment), as a means (military utility, asymmetric necessity, economic profit and plunder, or eradication of potential combatants), or as neither (including through recklessness, overkill policies, coincidence, accident, crime, and sacrifice). Coincidence is how Slim describes collateral killing, in which the death of civilians is a foreseen side effect of a military operation. Accidents are not foreseen but are genuine mistakes and forgivable human errors (due perhaps to fatigue, extreme fear, sensory overload, loss of control of weaponry, intelligence errors, misheard coordinates, or mistaken markings). Sacrifice occurs when "previous acts of violence and the anger they inspire ... rise to such levels that they need a victim" (p. 177). Violence can be deflected onto whole groups to divert the danger of rising violence within the perpetrator society. "Tragically," Slim observes, "sacrifice may in some mysterious sense still be the way we humans work.... We find solutions through the suffering of others or through our own self-suffering" (p. 178).

  The claim that many civilians do not merit immunity in war cannot be dismissed out of hand. Civilian identity is made less than clear-cut by civilians' economic ambiguity (civilians contribute to the war effort, including through provision of food and shelter to combatants, often their family members), their military ambiguity (civilians are used as messengers, information gatherers, weapons porters, and contractors to supply food and fuel to the military), social ambiguity (kinship and social relationships provide morale, support, and sympathy for combatants), and political ambiguity (civilians have a political and ideological stake in the conflict, and may actively and effectively encourage militancy).

  To counter such anti-civilian policies and constructions, Slim advocates promoting pro-civilian ideologies. Pro-civilian campaigns based on outrage and shaming those responsible for killing civilians are too narrow to succeed alone. Self-interest and power, as well as reason and emotional appeal, must be harnessed to encourage pro-civilian ideals and behavior. Respect for life, mercy, fair play, and innocence are the bases for arguments against killing civilians, but civilian status is nonetheless often ambiguous and problematic in practice. Such civilian ambiguity must be seen as inevitable, mutual, understandable, and tolerable; and fighters must be taught to tolerate civilians' ambiguous identity and to give them the benefit of the doubt. Ever the realist, Slim asks only that fighters spit on enemy civilians rather than shoot them, and hate them rather than harm them. Self-interest can lead a warlord to refrain from killing and displacing civilians and thereby becoming master only of a depopulated, unproductive, and untaxable wasteland. Authority, organizational culture, peer pressure, law, and punishment must be harnessed, too. The International Criminal Court can contribute a genuine risk of punishment and imprisonment for anti-civilian policies and strategies. Civilians must be taught their obligations ("If it is wrong to attack those who cannot harm you, it is also wrong to attack people when you are pretending that you cannot harm them" [p. 267]), but can also be empowered to argue their own case and to organize to promote their rights. A rights-based view of civilian protection is beginning to mobilize a global civilian protection movement. It is not yet a genuine people's movement but it soon could be, and it could utilize such technologies as photos and video clips spread by mobile phone and the Internet.

  Slim's well-written and engaging work is an essay within the philosophy of limited war. His motivation and intentions are clearly stated at the start of the book. He promotes the principle of civilian immunity as one of the ideals of the philosophy of limited war but admits that it does not sit easily with that philosophy's acceptance of the notion of military necessity and its appreciation of unintended consequence and coincidence in war. He provides a comprehensive overview of the many issues, problems, pressures, and arguments surrounding the topic of civilians in war. Slim's contribution to the academic debate is not a legal or philosophic argument but a set of practical recommendations. These he makes as a humanitarian practitioner with a rich experience of the horrors visited on civilians by war (though, of the many historical examples and cases to which he refers, few are firsthand accounts; and some gory examples seem gratuitous and some of dubious authenticity [was the murder of Kitty Genovese really witnessed by thirty-eight apathetic New Yorkers, as claimed on page 222?]). He calls for a broad campaign to boost the rights of civilians in war. The lessening of civilian deaths in war will be achieved not through a neat line of legal or philosophic argument but through broad and multilevel campaigns of the types that Slim advocates. And, it is not only civilians who will benefit from greater respect in practice for the civilian ethic: "Many soldiers know deep down that loving their enemies in some small way during war may prove crucial to their ability to love themselves and be loved by others when the war is over" (p. 286).

  Printable Version: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=23113

  Citation: Colm McKeogh. Review of Slim, Hugo, Killing Civilians: Method, Madness, and Morality in War. H-War, H-Net Reviews. December, 2008.
  URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=23113

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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• Ethics and International Affairs
  https://www.ethicsandinternationalaffairs.org/2008/targeting-civilians-in-war-and-killing-civilians-method-madness-and-morality-in-war-double-review/
  Word count: 2069

  Targeting Civilians in War, and Killing Civilians: Method, Madness and Morality in War [Double Review]
  Helen M. Kinsella | December 18, 2008
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  Targeting Civilians in War, Alexander B. Downes (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2008), 328 pp., $29.95 cloth.

  Killing Civilians: Method, Madness and Morality in War, Hugo Slim (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 300 pp., $29.95 cloth.

  On September 16, 2008, in his capacity as commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), U.S. Army General David D. McKiernan averred, “NATO and American officials in Afghanistan believe that one civilian casualty is too many.” This statement followed the release earlier in the month of a tactical directive reviewing procedures for using lethal force, the singular purpose of which was reducing civilian casualties. Both the directive and the general’s statement were in response to widespread condemnation of civilian casualties resulting from an air strike in the province of Herat. A week later, the UN Security Council extended the NATO-ISAF mission in Afghanistan, but only after issuing explicit cautions about moderating civilian casualties. Further, as Lawrence Wright reported in the New Yorker (June 2, 2008), events of the last year revealed that even organized networks of violence, such as al-Qaeda, are not unified in their acceptance of civilian casualties as a necessary normative and strategic dimension of armed conflict.

  What these actions suggest is that the protection and defense of civilians during armed conflicts represents an elemental strategic and normative commitment on the part of the majority of states and organized militaries and insurgencies. Yet, as Hugo Slim and Alexander Downes rightfully point out in these two new books, even as the protection and defense of civilians is “stronger in the mainstream political imagination today than for a long time” and is “riding high in political and public consciousness” (Slim, p. 2), civilian casualties are as common as they are condemned. Consequently, both authors begin with a deceptively simple question: Given the moral stigma and its supposed dubious effectiveness, why does the targeting and killing of civilians occur? This question has been relatively neglected as scholars and practitioners have struggled to document the nature and number of civilian deaths and to bring this significant issue to the fore of international attention. Thus, both authors contribute to the still nascent, but theoretically and empirically rich, mapping of violence against civilians during armed conflicts of the past and of the present, outlining the reasons that justify or enable such violence.

  Foremost, neither author restricts his analysis to the traditional case of interstate wars, and both are attentive to the breadth of possible types of armed conflict—including insurgency/counterinsurgency and colonial wars—as well as the range of possible locations of armed conflict. Notwithstanding this similarity, there is a significant difference regarding case selection. Downes works with a new data set he created, consisting of all interstate conflicts from 1816 to 2003. Slim’s case selection is not justified by any particular logic or explanation—there is, in his words, “no particular rationale” (p. 3)—which means his conclusions are interpretive and qualitative.

  Additionally, rather than focusing only on direct targeting, each author presents a nuanced understanding of the myriad ways violence against civilians takes form—from forcible displacement to disease to economic and social destruction. Downes employs the term “civilian victimization” (p. 13), which includes both direct targeting strategies as well as military strategies that fail to discriminate between combatants and civilians. Slim describes “seven spheres of civilian suffering” (p. 39) (two less than in Dante’s Hell), which include slightly more, and more specific, modes of suffering—such as sexual violence, torture, and emotional distress—than those captured by Downes’s concept of civilian victimization. This difference is relatively minor, as Downes’s concept is certainly inclusive enough to analyze each of the seven spheres discussed by Slim. It most likely results from the different structure of the two books, with Slim devoting an entire third of his book to descriptions of violence, while Downes embeds his descriptions in each case study.

  Hugo Slim, until recently the chief scholar at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva, has long been concerned with the ethical dimensions of armed conflict and, in particular, with the plight of civilians. His purchase on the question of civilian suffering and killing synthesizes his academic training in theology and humanitarianism with his decades of practical experience in situations of violence. He skillfully weaves personal narratives, that of his own in addition to those of others who have lived through and/or perpetuated violence against civilians, with an exposition of a range of ideologies and military strategies that facilitate the suffering and death of civilians. Although he concludes his book with highly practical strategies for promoting the protection and defense of civilians, drawn from a mix of social theories of markets, cognitive psychology, and behavioral modification, his book is fundamentally as philosophical as it is pragmatic. It is so because his pragmatism is predicated upon the conviction that mercy and compassion are at the core of protection and defense of civilians, and that without this recognition little may be altered.

  For Slim, there exist both a category and a concept of a “protected people” whom we call civilians. The very existence of this category and concept is an effect of a “timeless moral sense” that not all enemies in war are to be treated the same. Moreover, the civilian ethic, now codified in international law, has its origins in the “ancient” idea that “mercy, restraint, and protection should have a place in war” (p. 1). Slim—and in this he can be profitably compared to Michael Walzer—holds as essential the premise that there is, at the least, a thin moral consensus that particular individuals should not be the subjects of violence; that is, not all individuals should be treated the same during armed conflict. Slim is not naïve about the inviolability of this ethic and is intimately cognizant of the ease of its trespass. Indeed, it is his willingness to fully explore the reasons for its trespass rather than to retreat from the evidence or rail against its occurrence that makes his book so noteworthy.

  Slim argues that without understanding what he terms “anti-civilian ideologies” as organizational and operational heuristics that facilitate civilian killings, we are reduced to banal platitudes. The spectrum of these ideologies ranges from a reluctance or regretful “sense of inevitability” of causing civilian death and suffering to the “absolute rejection” of the civilian ethic, resulting in extermination. He—and in this he and Downes agree—suggests that the turn toward increasing harshness and destruction arises from a rational decision, namely, “a hard sense of political necessity—the fact that there is no other way to win—or around a belief that the ambiguity of the civilian population is too high to ignore” (p. 121). Slim terms this “exceptionalist” or “suspensionist” ideology, and he notes that the persuasiveness of this ideology is linked to the fundamental ambiguity of civilian identity (p. 179). For Slim, the category of civilian is profoundly ambiguous because individuals participate in social, economic, political, and military activities that are not easily classified as civilian or combatant. (See my “Securing the Civilian: Sex and Gender in the Laws of War,” in Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall, eds., Power in Global Governance [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005], and “Discourses of Difference: Civilians, Combatants, and Compliance with the Laws of War,” Review of International Studies 31, Supp. S1 [2006] for further exploration of this question.)

  I will return to the question of identity, but do so in conversation with Alexander Downes’s remarkably provocative and powerful book. Downes, a professor of political science at Duke University, combines sophisticated large N-statistical methods with intensive case research to evaluate the predominant hypotheses as to when and why civilians are killed. As a result, Downes can empirically test and evaluate some of the presumptions upon which Slim’s approach is built. For example, Slim draws on the work of Stathis Kalyvas in his discussion of collective punishment of the population in response to guerrilla insurgencies as an explanation of civilian suffering and killing. But what Downes, who is also responding to Kalyvas, discovers is that while collective punishment provides the initial explanation for civilian victimization, it cannot explain why civilian victimization worsens over time. In other words, against Kalyvas, who suggests that civilian victimization will lessen over time as militaries identify exactly who to target (with the result that violence becomes more discriminate and directed toward combatants), and against Slim, who presumes civilian victimization remains somewhat static over time, Downes plots a different outcome. One of the most substantive contributions Downes makes is in charting the patterns and strategies of violence as they change over time.

  Indeed, Downes decisively proves that one of the essential causal mechanisms of civilian victimization is the desperation to win and to lower the costs—human, financial, or reputational—to one’s side. Significantly, he is able to demonstrate this highly original argument against those who posit that the key variable is the type of domestic regime (for example, democracies versus repressive regimes), identity of combatants (whether the enemy is perceived as barbaric or civilized), or type of military organization. In contrast, Downes decisively demonstrates that desperation to win and to lower costs prompt democracies and nondemocracies alike to victimize civilians, and that cultural or racial differences do not correlate with increased civilian victimization. Unfortunately, considering the crucial role of regime type and military organization, these variables are almost wholly left out of Slim’s analysis.

  Downes’s argument has an additional dimension. As described above, “desperation to win and to save lives on one’s own side in costly protracted wars of attrition” is one cause of civilian victimization. Notably, this cause has nothing to do with the original aim of armed conflict; that is, civilian suffering and killing is attributable to the sequence of events as the armed conflict proceeds. However, the second cause that Downes finds significant does have to do with the original aim—that is, the “belligerents’ appetite for territorial conquest” (pp. 3–4). In this case, the drive to expel and/or cleanse the indigenous population leads to civilian suffering and killing.

  Finally, although both authors address the influence of identity on the waging of armed conflict and the severity of civilian killing and suffering, each draws his own conclusion regarding its role. Downes acknowledges the presence and power of identity in selecting military strategies, but he argues that identity is not independently causal but rather is invoked once the severity of the conflict increases. Identity thus becomes a means by which to incite and legitimate more harsh measures: “The more severe the conflict . . . the more likely that the enemy will come to be viewed as evil or barbarous” (p. 177). In contrast, Slim believes identity to be causal. In other words, whether through genocidal, dualistic, or collective thinking—in which individuals are grouped as one category, which is then deemed evil and inferior—the very conceptualization of the enemy initiates and incites brutalization of civilians.

  Interestingly, the one identity that Downes presumes, that of the civilian, is the one identity that Slim argues is most ambiguous. The concept of identity invoked by Downes is ultimately too simplistic to capture the role that identity plays in armed conflict—whether it is the identity of the civilian or the combatant. At the same time, Slim’s invocation of “we are all the same” is too flimsy an understanding of identity to maintain, much less to name as a foundation for, the protection and defense of civilians, as, paradoxically, his own scholarship demonstrates. None of these criticisms, however, should be read as taking away from the success of each scholar in investigating a range of possible causes of civilian suffering and killing, and in instigating a contentious but highly productive debate about how best to prevent and ameliorate civilian suffering.

  —HELEN M. KINSELLA

  The reviewer is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is currently working on a manuscript entitled “The Image Before the Weapon: A Critical History of the Distinction of Combatant and Civilian in International Law and Politics.”

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  Category: Book Review, Issue 22.4

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• Defencer
  http://ada.asn.au/assets/files/Defender/Summer2007-08/KillingCivilians.pdf
  Word count: 1765

  Killing Civilians: Method, Madness and Morality in War
  Hugo Slim A review essay by Dr Hugh Smith
  This is an important book. Hugo Slim, a former academic and humanitarian aid worker in Africa and the Middle East, analyses the apparently simple idea that ‘there are certain groups of people who should be protected from the killing and wounding of war’. It is an idea almost as old as the actual practice of killing civilians in war.
  The approach Slim takes is not the familiar one of the international laws of armed con ict which de nes civilians in a negative way (ie. those not directly participating in combat), and sets out principles such as discrimination and proportionality which permit civilian death and suffering, albeit indirectly and regretfully. Killing Civilians looks beneath the surface to analyse why civilians are so often deliberately and directly attacked in war before suggesting ways in which the principle of civilian immunity might be more effectively promoted.
  Certain armed forces, the ADF amongst them, can pride themselves on their long-standing practice of respect for the rights of civilians. But even for such forces it is important to understand why other armed groups with which they may have to contend often see the place of civilians in war quite differently. The book also serves as a reminder that even well-trained and disciplined forces can lapse into atrocity.
  Slim’s comprehensive review of the extraordinary range of inhumanity that people in ict on civilians in war is quietly passionate and deeply disturbing. Within an analytic framework, the author presents vivid examples of murder, rape, deportation, starvation, humiliation and so on from his own and others’ experience, especially in Africa. But Slim is clear that the ‘seven spheres of civilian suffering’ are to be found in almost all wars regardless of place, time and the parties involved.
  In explaining why and how civilians suffer Slim offers a two-level analysis. First he identi es ‘anti-civilian ideologies’ – sets of ideas that provide broad justi cation for attacking civilians. Some of this is familiar, such as the dualism of ‘us and them’; the urge to genocide when facing a group perceived as sub-human or simply inferior on grounds of race, religion or ethnicity; the lust for total power over an opponent through coercion, punishment or destruction; and the attraction of revenge on behalf of oneself, one’s nation or one’s God. Slim discusses these phenomena in clear, jargon-free fashion but also delves into more complex psychological currents in human affairs such as ‘sacri cial thinking’ whereby civilians themselves can, like soldiers, see their suffering as a sacri ce for the greater good. Civilian
  suffering on both sides thus becomes an integral and accepted part of war.
  The second level of analysis looks at the emotional, psychological and social forces that actually drive individuals to kill civilians. How do mostly ordinary people become killers? How are normal inhibitions overcome such that we feel permitted to do things we would not usually even contemplate? Demonisation of enemies, coercive authority, physically and emotionally distancing combatants from actual killing, mobilising grievances, ‘blooding’ warriors with their rst kill, creation of social bonds around killing, offering mechanisms of denial to minimise or eliminate guilt and shame, are all familiar culprits. Slim’s analysis, which makes good use of examples, is clear and persuasive.
  It is the author’s recognition of the arguments for killing civilians that is perhaps the most valuable contribution of this book. There are, rstly, advantages in killing civilians. As strategy or as tactics it can get results. The so-called ‘strategic’ bombing of cities in World War II certainly hindered the German war effort (whether the resources allocated to Bomber Command could have been better employed is a different question). Suicide bombings and terrorist attacks are sometimes seen as the only tactic open to an oppressed and powerless people. For warlords, too, killing and maiming civilians can be an effective means of keeping power or simply making money.
  Secondly, there is a need to recognise that civilians often do contribute to a group’s war effort. International law states that civilians who participate directly in con icts lose their immunity, but this leaves a great deal of indirect participation that is permissible – such as paying taxes to support a war, providing labour for factories making items of all kinds used by military forces, running power stations or railway systems used by civilians and military alike, or trading with an occupying or insurgent force. Even vocal support for a war and encouragement of citizens to ght might be valuable contributions. And participation might extend, as it does in Osama bin Laden’s thinking, to every voter in a democratic state that has decided on war. The line between civilian and combatant, though easily de ned in theory, is never easily drawn in practice.
  Given these realities, it is not surprising that civilian immunity in war should always be precarious and frequently disregarded. At the extreme, some simply reject it as never appropriate or even glorify the ‘totality’ of war. States that support the principle often nd it convenient to argue that
  2
  Defender – Summer 2007/08
  reviews
  necessity justi es its suspension ‘for the duration’ – as Churchill did in relation to the bombing of enemy cities. (In the same way some now defend torture as a temporary response to global terrorism). And even rule-abiding armies can easily slip into lethal carelessness, indifference or recklessness in their dealing with civilians.
  Slim’s conclusion is that these manifold pressures and arguments for drawing civilians into hostilities must be understood from the perspective of those within war. Those in danger naturally perceive a wide range of people as threatening and argue that hitting back at such people and their assets is a legitimate and necessary response. Effective constraints must therefore recognise the advantages of killing civilians and the inherent dif culty of distinguishing combatants and civilians. Attempts to limit attacks on civilians by simple appeals to principle or to international law are hollow and unconvincing.
  As to the remedy, Slim is persuasive in his prescription but not necessarily convinced that it will be effective. It is necessary, rst of all, to accept that the status of ‘civilian’ is inherently ambiguous in that most will be supporting a war in some way, however indirectly. Combatants need to accept that there is no such thing as a pure civilian who contributes nothing to a war – unless, perhaps, he or she is dead. Respecting civilian immunity will always entail the prospect of short-term disadvantage.
  The key to change, secondly, is to get those involved in war to see enemy civilians as ‘people like them’. This does not necessarily mean eagerly embracing them; it is suf cient to tolerate their existence. You can still hate enemy civilians as long as you recognise, however grudgingly and resentfully, their right not to be abused. And for their part, Slim argues, civilians must recognise their obligation not to abuse their protected status – for example, by concealing arms in per dious fashion.
  Killing Civilians, finally, points to a wide range of methods to change people’s thinking which rely in varying degrees on reason, emotion and power. There are practical reasons not to harm civilians since such actions can provoke retaliation, increase resistance and undermine prospects for lasting peace. Factors such as respect for life, the exercise of mercy, and the maintenance of fairness in ghting help make war psychologically bearable to those engaged in an activity that can traumatise and shame participants. And there are powerful institutions – such as military training organisations, national and international courts of law, and governments that can persuade, pressure or punish individuals into observing civilian immunity.
  Certain points in Slim’s analysis could be contested and others stand in need of expansion. Why, for example, does some dualist (us-them) thinking lead to extremes of violence but other cases do not? Is it enough simply to assert that, say, insurgents using civilians for cover must share some of the guilt for innocent deaths when retaliation is taken? Governments that take this line have a hard time. More could also be said about the notion of honour in war which for some armies at least creates a strong sense of obligation to ght fairly, mercifully and within the rules – and about why it is absent in other forces.
  In addition, though the book occasionally refers to ‘limited war’, it might make more use of the extensive literature on this topic. There is, for example, an important sense in which limits on war can be arbitrary and need not refer to notions such as ‘innocence’ or ‘participation’. Geographically, warring parties may agree not to carry hostilities into certain areas. Militarily, the widespread and perhaps arbitrary reluctance to regard any nuclear weapon, whatever its size, as just another weapon has signi cantly helped to restrain violence in war. Sociologically, the substantial exclusion of women from combat forces for much of human history has been in some degree arbitrary – precisely the point argued by those who believe women should be allowed in all front- line combat.
  But these are minor quibbles. Slim has performed a great service in providing a fresh and stimulating analysis of the idea that civilians ought to be protected in war – at a time when the idea is under great challenge – and in offering some proposals to help uphold the idea. He has seen enough of war and warriors to see the problem from the inside and to recognise that change will be dif cult. His conclusion is dif cult to fault: ‘Placing limits around violence remains ... one of the hardest challenges of the human condition’. 
  Hugo Slim, ‘Killing Civilians: Method, Madness and Morality in War’, Hurst & Company, London, 2007, Casebound, viii + 319 pp., RRP $A60.00.
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• Literary Review UK
  https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-innocent-dead
  Word count: 236

  CAROLINE MOOREHEAD
  The Innocent Dead
  Killing Civilians: Method, Madness and Morality in War
  By Hugo Slim
  Hurst & Co 320pp £20 order from our bookshop
  LITERARY REVIEW - BRITAIN'S BEST-LOVED LITERARY MAGAZINE
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  There is a much quoted statistic about contemporary war. At the beginning of the twentieth century 90 per cent of casualties were soldiers. In today’s conflicts, 90 per cent of the dead and wounded are civilians.
  These figures are striking, but it is a mistake, as Hugo Slim demonstrates in Killing Civilians, to think that noncombatants have ever been anything but extremely vulnerable. The moments in history when they were actually safe in wartime were only ‘blips’ in humanity’s ‘long and bloody history of conquest, group rivalry, religious fanaticism, political extremism, empire building and modern state formation’. Moving backwards and forwards across time, Slim charts the many depressing ways in which, from the start of recorded time, civilians have been harried, displaced, imprisoned, hounded, tortured, raped, mutilated and massacred as part of warfare. As the historian R J Rummel notes, in the twentieth century alone an estimated 217 million people died, and countless others were injured as a result of war.
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• African Arguments
  http://africanarguments.org/2008/12/13/killing-civilians/
  Word count: 813

  Killing Civilians
  BY ALEX DE WAALDECEMBER 13, 20080
  SHARE:

  This blog hosts occasional debates on significant books, relevant to Darfur and the wider questions that it raises. Killing Civilians: Method, Madness and Morality in War, by Hugo Slim, is one such book: it raises a series of profound questions about how and why civilians are killed in war””and how and why they are not killed, or are protected. We have asked a number of individuals to contribute their thoughts on this book, and Slim to respond.

  Hugo Slim’s book has a broad historical and contemporary analysis. We know that the killing, rape, robbery and torture of civilians is nothing new in history, and that it takes many different forms across different conflicts. Organizing this vast and dismal array of material into a coherent and succinct account is no small feat. What Slim succeeds in doing is not only cataloguing these horrors, but also providing a schema for beginning to typologize and understand. That’s a hugely useful task.

  Slim’s chapter 4, “˜Anti-Civilian Ideologies’, is especially useful. He lays out a spectrum of “˜anti-civilian thinking.’ At one end is the extreme of genocidal logic in which the aim of violence is precisely to eradicate a civilian group. That eradication can even be celebrated. This is an absolutist rejection of the civilian ethic. It’s rare, but is strikingly present in some of the most extreme manifestations of genocidal ideology.

  In the middle, are various forms whereby anti-civilian violence are rationalized. The killing may be justified out of political necessity. It may be that killing civilians “works” in pursuit of war ends, and is perhaps the most readily accessible means of fighting a war, particularly if the belligerents have limited capacity to target and defeat the enemy soldiers themselves. Killing civilians has political utility””the thinking is instrumental. Another line of reasoning is that the “civilian” status of the target group is ambiguous””they may be difficult to distinguish from combatants or may be aiding the enemy war effort to the extent that attacking them can be rationalized. In such cases, the perpetrators of the violence typically argue that they are reluctantly deviating from a norm.

  At the other end of the spectrum are ideologies or explanations that regard civilian suffering and death as the regrettable but inevitable outcome of war””that’s simply how war is and it would be futile to try and pretend otherwise. In such cases, the perpetrators of violence do have (some) real belief in the civilian ethic, but find some reason to justify their actions when they do in fact engage in such killing.

  Slim’s focus on ideology and the rationalization of killings is especially useful. Organizing mass violence is an intellectual task as much as a management challenge. The association between killing civilians and the promotion and internalization of dehumanizing stereotypes has often been noticed. There’s an implicit social theory in some such descriptions, implying that adopting and applying derogatory and dehumanizing views of the “other” is a causal prelude to mass killing. The correlation is clear to see””the causal links are less so. It may be that negative stereotyping arises (in part, or in some people) as a consequence of being required to kill. As Slim explains, the “eighty percent” rule is a sound guide to the extent to which ordinary people will act on orders to participate in violence against civilians””eighty percent of people will follow, ten percent will passively resist and only ten percent will actively resist. Most of those who follow the orders to kill will suffer some form of cognitive dissonance””a disturbing gap between their sense of themselves as fair and moral beings and their awareness of what they are doing””and will be ready to justify their actions by adopting negative stereotypes of the victims, allowing themselves to belief that they deserve their fate.

  Another important line of rationalization is sacrificial thinking””the belief that it is necessary for people to suffer and for blood to be shed to achieve some higher goal. In wars of liberation””and wars presented as such””people will be prepared to put up with, and even endorse, extreme suffering if they believe that it is for greater good. Such lines of argument are deeply embedded in many societies. The idea that suffering is intrinsically meaningless, no more than an abomination, is often anathema.

  Where does the Darfur war fall within this spectrum? Many of Slim’s insights are highly relevant. I would suggest that while there may be individuals who subscribe to the strands of thinking at each extreme of the spectrum, the majority are firmly within the middle categories. Killing civilians “works” in Sudan””in different ways for different belligerents.

• The Economist
  http://www.economist.com/node/10683820
  Word count: 873

  How best to protect them

  Feb 14th 2008
  Timekeeper
  AP Wrong place, wrong time
  THE idea of a limited war, in which certain groups of people should be protected, is not new. In the fourth century St Augustine was already advocating the doctrine of a “just war”, based on civilian protection, proportionality and restraint. The same principles were enshrined in the 1949 Geneva Conventions and in the mandates of the various international tribunals set up over the past 15 years. Yet the moral ideal of civilian protection remains very much a minority view.

  As Hugo Slim explains in “Killing Civilians”, marking out a special category of people called “civilians” from the wider enemy group in war “is a distinction that is not, and never has been, either clear, meaningful or right” for many perpetrators of war—nor even for many civilians themselves. A former humanitarian field-worker, Mr Slim is now chief scholar at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Switzerland. In this book he begins by examining in great and gory detail the appalling ways in which civilians have suffered in wars down the ages—by rape, massacre, torture, mutilation, famine, disease, trauma and so on. He goes on to look at why unarmed, supposedly harmless civilians so often turn out to be the victims in war.

  The reasons, he suggests, include a desire to exterminate an entire group of purportedly inferior beings (genocide); a lust for power and domination (Genghis Khan); a thirst for revenge (as in so many of today's African wars); necessity (claimed by Palestinian suicide-bombers in their “asymmetrical” war against Israel); or plunder (common in the past, but rarer today). Civilians may also be killed or wounded through calculated recklessness (as when Israeli bulldozers raze Palestinian homes) or the inevitable accidents that are associated with inaccurate weapons (“collateral damage”).

  In this section
  The stranger in their midst
  How best to protect them
  Her last words
  Bugs' life
  Imagination ablaze
  The living daylights
  Reprints
  But who qualifies as a civilian? International law provides only a negative description: someone who is not a member of the armed forces, who does not carry a weapon, who does not take part in hostilities. This is clearly inadequate. An estimated 60% of the world's weapons-bearers are civilians (hunters, for example). On the other hand, many of those who do not carry arms (or wear uniforms) may be very much part of the war effort—ammunition workers, porters, victuallers and the like. And what of the ideologues whose hate-filled doctrines fuel the conflict, the newspaper editors who disseminate the propaganda or the taxpayers who pay for the war? Should they be afforded special protection when the unwilling teenage conscript is not?

  As Mr Slim himself concedes, there are rarely totally innocent bystanders in wartime. Osama bin Laden deems all the citizens of any democracy that goes to war to be “non-innocent”—and therefore legitimate targets—because their political systems allow them to choose their leaders and thus to choose their wars. Although Mr Slim would not go that far, he agrees that it is a “fallacy” to suggest that all civilians are equally harmless in wartime. But, he argues (not totally convincingly), “it is a necessary fallacy if we are to try to limit the killing in war.”

  Although most people the world over say they prefer non-violence, ordinary people can get sucked into organised violence with relative ease, Mr Slim notes. Psychological studies, such as the one Stanley Milgram carried out at Yale University and published in 1974, have repeatedly shown that, given certain conditions, 80% of most populations will either collude or directly take part in acts of violence. Only 10% will refuse outright, while another 10% will actively resist.

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  Some of the conditions that turn people into killers are well known: extreme coercion, obedience to authority, dehumanisation of the enemy, social bonding, hatred, indoctrination, revenge, survival. Alcohol, drugs, rituals, warpaint, even dark glasses can also help produce an “altered state” conducive to violence. Bloodletting can itself be intoxicating, even erotic. Mr Slim cites American soldiers in Vietnam saying that killing was like “getting screwed for the first time”, producing “an ache as profound as the ache of an orgasm”.

  In the last part of the book, Mr Slim suggests ways in which others may be converted to the ideology of limited warfare with its central concern of civilian protection. Simply repeating that civilian suffering is illegal and wrong, as many human-rights groups tend to do, will do little to change potential perpetrators, he says. Appeals should rather be made to their self-interest, sense of fairness, even to old-fashioned virtues like mercy and honour. Some hope. Even Mr Slim admits the likelihood of success is slender.

  This is a clear, impartial, honest work. It is scholarly yet free of jargon, compassionate yet not over-emotional, moral without being preachy, stuffed with facts and figures yet brought alive by a myriad of vivid historical, contemporary and personal anecdotes. In short, it is very good.

  This article appeared in the Books and arts section of the print edition

• Foreign Affairs
  https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2008-09-01/killing-civilians-method-madness-and-morality-war
  Word count: 219

  Killing Civilians: Method, Madness, and Morality in War
  by Hugo Slim
  Reviewed by Lawrence D. Freedman
  In This Review
  Killing Civilians: Method, Madness, and Morality in War
  Hugo Slim
  Slim explores the problem of restraint in war by considering how civilians can be spared its ravages. With painful and poignant examples, he describes deliberate extermination, planned massacres, rape, and the famine and disease associated with war. This is more than a collection of horror stories, let alone a pacifist tract. Slim understands why wars sometimes must be fought and that attempts are often made to try to spare civilians unnecessary harm, and he grasps how the moral force of the civil-military distinction is soon undermined by the brutish logic of war, especially in these days of asymmetric war, when insurgents are constantly trying to draw regular forces into civilian areas. Lacking confidence in appeals to humanitarian law, he struggles to think of ways to assert the core principle that "even in war, one should kill as little as possible." He explores the possibility of appeals to self-interest, fairness, and mercy. Any attempt to carve out a humanitarian space in the midst of bitter conflicts faces tough challenges, but Slim's book is an important reminder of why it is vital to try.

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