Human shields : a history of people in the line of fire / Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini.
| Author/creator | Gordon, Neve, 1965- author. |
| Other author | Perugini, Nicola, author. |
| Format | Book |
| Edition | Updated with a new preface and epilogue. |
| Publication | Oakland : University of California Press, [2026] |
| Copyright Date | ©2020 |
| Description | xvi, 314 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 23 cm |
| Subjects |
| Contents | Preface: Shielding and the destruction of Gaza -- Introduction -- Civil war : humane warfare in the United States -- Irregulars : the Franco-German War and the legal use of human shields -- Settlers : the Second Boer War and the limits of liberal humanitarianism -- Reports : World War I and the German use of human screens -- Peace army : international pacifism and voluntary shielding during the Sino-Japanese War -- Emblem : the Italo-Ethiopian War and Red Cross medical facilities -- Nuremberg : Nazi human shielding and the lack of civilian protections -- Codification : the Geneva Conventions and the passive civilian -- People's war : casting Vietnamese resistance as human shielding -- Environment : green human shielding -- Resistance : antimilitary activism in Iraq and Palestine -- Humanitarian crimes : the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia -- Manuals : military handbooks as lawmaking tools -- Scale : human shielding in Sri Lanka and the principle of proportionality -- Hospitals : the use of medical facilities as shields -- Proximity : civilians trapped in the midst of the war on ISIS -- Info-war : the Gaza wars and social media -- Posthuman shielding : drone warfare and new surveillance technologies -- Women and children : gender, passivity, and human shields -- Spectacle : viral images that dehumanize or humanize shields -- Computer games : human shields in virtual wars -- Protest : civil disobedience as an act of war -- Epilogue: shielding genocide. |
| Abstract | From Syrian civilians locked in iron cages to veterans joining peaceful indigenous water protectors at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, from Sri Lanka to Iraq and from Yemen to the United States, human beings have been used as shields for protection, coercion, or deterrence. Over the past decade, human shields have also appeared with increasing frequency in antinuclear struggles, civil and environmental protests, and even computer games. The phenomenon, however, is by no means a new one. Describing the use of human shields in key historical and contemporary moments across the globe, Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini demonstrate how the increasing weaponization of human beings has made the position of civilians trapped in theaters of violence more precarious and their lives more expendable. They show how the law facilitates the use of lethal violence against vulnerable people while portraying it as humane, but they also reveal how people can and do use their own vulnerability to resist violence and denounce forms of dehumanization. Ultimately, Human Shields unsettles our common ethical assumptions about violence and the law and urges us to imagine entirely new forms of humane politics. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN | 9780520432406 (paperback) |
| ISBN | 0520432401 (paperback) |
| ISBN | (cloth) |
| ISBN | (cloth) |
| ISBN | (ebook) |