Humanitarian Intervention: Help or Harm? – hosted by the Association of Political Science Students

February 24, 2012

“Has Humanitarian Intervention Caused More Harm than Good?“

A Debate hosted by the Association of Political Science Students

Vivian and David Campbell Conference Centre, Munk School
Tuesday, February 28, 4-6 PM

There will be a reception to follow: 6-6:45 PM
Undergraduate student presentations will be held the next day, Wednesday February 29, 2012 at Sidney Smith Hall Room 3130 (100 St. George St.): 12-2pm

Dr. Thomas G. Weiss is Presidential Professor of Political Science and the Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the The City University of New York. Having served as research director of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (which authored the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine) and published over 160 peer-reviewed articles and 40 books, including Humanitarianism Contested: Where Angels Fear to Tread and Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas in Action, Dr. Weiss is an top-rate scholar and a powerful advocate for the protection of human rights who has played an important role in establishing and refining the concept of humanitarian intervention.

Dr. Alan Kuperman is Associate Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. Dr. Kuperman is one of the world’s foremost experts on humanitarian intervention. He regularly participates in public debate, sharing his controversial views on national TV, in the New York Times, and as a fellow at leading Washington think tanks such as the Woodrow Wilson Center. His most well-known writings are The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention: Genocide in Rwanda (Brookings, 2001) a captivating corrective to the standard narrative on the Rwandan Genocide and what the West could have done to stop it, and “The Moral Hazard of Humanitarian Intervention,” a warning about the unintended consequences of humanitarian intervention.