On the Idea of Humanitarian Intervention: A New Compartmentalization of IR Theories delves into the minefield of international relations theory with its various subsectors and branches, a task that requires scholarly fortitude and contains far-reaching opinions, with some sensible and other polemic.

There are various schools of thought and different approaches to international relations dependant on where you situate geographically and academically. There exist an array of scholarly epochs that position international relations amongst political theories and various philosophies. This list of variables stretches on. At the heart of Piotr Pietrzak’s recent book, On the Idea of Humanitarian Intervention: A New Compartmentalization of IR Theories, is a confrontation with a good number of these approaches. He is not critiquing one approach as less worthy than any other; instead, he believes this eclecticism detrimental to humanitarian intervention. For any humanitarian intervention to succeed, he writes: “To me personally, it has been a matter of bringing all of the approaches in question together to one decision-making table so that all IR voices would be heard.”

This is the book’s core agenda—consider as many IR approaches as possible, from myriad schools of thought, and “seek clarity, truth, and accountability about both our international relations and some individual concepts, ideas, or processes . . . expos[ing] them to the broad pluralism of theories, methods and approaches available. . .” According to Pietrzak’s theory, this umbrella approach has more applicability than revering one school of thought or biasing one ideological approach. The goal? To bring together many IR-related strands to ascertain whether humanitarian intervention—including the prevention of atrocity crimes and the implementation of the Responsibility to Protect norm—has legitimacy. To crassly paraphrase: many minds make decision making easier, helping justify any form of intervention. And this is what individualistic approaches lack, and what is missing in larger institutions including the UN. Together, however, “we can achieve great things, beyond our wildest imaginations.”

It is an ambitious quest and to substantiate Pietrzak’s claims, the book gives condensed accounts of several IR theoretical approaches. Included are descriptions of realism, liberalism, post-colonialism, feminist theorist, the English School of IR theory, and neo-Marxism, to name but some. He does the same with philosophy, giving brief and intersectional accounts of the way philosophy contributes (directly or otherwise) to international relations. The list includes ancient Greek thought, Immanuel Kant, John Rawls, Karl Popper, Jacques Derrida, and so on. These ways of thinking come together in “an emerging political ontology called in statu nascedi [in the nascent state, in the course of being created] . . . a hybridized compartmentalization of various IR-related theories . . . provid[ing] the broader public with a deep ontological inquiry into the nature, origin, and genesis of the idea of humanitarian intervention, and opens up a broader debate on the limits on the principle of state sovereignty on the one hand, and the international community’s ignorance of the most severe cases of human rights abuses around the world, on the other.”

As gleaned from the quotes, the author is not shy of making grand claims. The book does reveal Pietrzak to be well situated in IR theory and, more broadly, philosophy. He applies this background to a real-world situation by using the civil war in Syria as a case study. In Chapter Six he outlines what went wrong in Syria in relation to humanitarian intervention (or lack thereof), discussing the complications of R2P and the influence of global politics on the deplorable state of Syria since the outbreak of civil war. He then proposes to show how his theory works, turning to Syria in Chapter Eight to reveal alternate pathways of amalgamated thought that could have achieved better humanitarian outcomes.

Does this work? Not always, and the implementation of the core idea feels overridden by Pietrzak’s need to reveal his understanding of the many theories included in the conversation. The book also rests on the premise that no two theories meet frequently and therefore there is little to no conversation between theories and theorists, to the detriment of humanitarian intervention. To quote Pietrzak: “such an instrumental suggestion would not be met with much enthusiasm among the scholars who are known to value the intellectual freedom and independence of their respective branches of theory, and they are inclined to prioritize their own over the well-being of the entire discipline.” This feels quite a narrow assumption of IR intellectuals and practitioners, for most conversations dealing with issues at the core of the book need deliberating, conversing about, and while not pointing directly to schools of thought or a specific philosophic ideal, there must be hints at crosspollination. Pietrak’s assumptions err towards the binary.

Second, Pietrzak employs a myriad of obtuse examples to explain how the Syrian situation would benefit from his approach, including a confusing mix of anecdotes. For example, to emphasise the importance feminist theory might play when approaching the Syrian case study, he discusses the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the ascension of Lyndon Johnson to President. Jaqueline Kennedy, he suggests, mush have felt effrontery and confusion following the death of her husband and his quick replacement by President Johnson. He then applies this to the many wives and mothers in Syria and Iraq who lost husbands and fathers due to conflict. He writes: “the scholars representing this [feminist] tradition could suggest drawing our attention to today’s Syria and Iraq to ask ourselves how many Jackie Kennedys were there in Iraq and Syria who must have asked themselves the same questions, such as ‘Why are you taking my husband?’” There might be some blurred connection here, but its applicability feels missing. Surely there are better examples that show the theory’s usefulness. In another example, he asks why Auschwitz was not bombed by the Allies. This becomes an example of how international talk, politics, and notions of state sovereignty are detrimental to humanitarian intervention, as is the same of Syria. All true, but there seems little in this section that correlates to Pietrzak’s overall aim. It sits as an oddly placed diversion that tenuously relates to his new way of thinking about IR. This is present in other examples as well.

On the Idea of Humanitarian Intervention is an interesting and worthwhile read. It contributes to discussions about the future of IR theory and its applicability to humanitarian intervention. And, as Pietrzak notes throughout—emphasised by the core Latin phrase—the ideas presented are works-in-progress. The applicability of these core ideas remains to be proven, and this is where the book leaves the reader: wishing for more evidence of the effectiveness of this new compartmentalization of IR theories.

This is a review of Piotr Pietrzak, On the Idea of Humanitarian Intervention: A New Compartmentalization of IR Theories (Columbia University Press: 2022), ISBN: 9783838215921.

Kirril Shields is a researcher and grants manager at the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (APR2P Centre), housed in the School of Political Science and International Studies at The University of Queensland. He teaches into several courses across the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and is the current Editor-in-Chief of Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Licence and may be republished with attribution.