Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preface. List of tables. Introduction. Part I: Evolution of multilaterialism. 1. Multilateral Passage from Rights to Violators. 2. The First Multilateral Sanctions. 3. Limitations of Multilateralism: Isral between the West and the Middle East. Part II: The United States as trendsetter in unilateralism. 4. Containment of Communism. 5. Wielding the Aid Lever. Part III: Unilateralism and multilateralism in practice. 6. South America. 7. The Middle East and North Africa. 8. Asia. 9. Africa. 10. Sanctions against Iraq. 11. Fortress Europe and Eastern Europe. Part V: A look back and a look forward. 12. The Pattern of Condemnations and Sanctions. 13. After this Past, what Future?.

This volume maps out the response of states to human rights violations. It covers the period 1946-1999 and offers a complete and unmatched record for this period. Its starting point is that such responses are not established and accepted state practice. Traditional, if unwritten, norms of states' behaviour developed through centuries of silence and inaction; the prevalent reaction to human rights violations by another state remains the absence of any response. Furthermore, this book probes into evidence of active and passive complicity by reviewing aid to countries in which violations have been taking place and diplomatic initiatives undertaken to shield violators from public opprobrium. Since international law is generated through state practice, the book highlights the ongoing tussle between the pre-1946 heritage of silence and inaction and the 1946-1999 haphazard pattern of responses to violations.

Description based on print version record.