For the Love of Humanity

[A] remarkable account of the World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) . . . For the Love of Humanity, conveys the complexity of both the WTI's endeavor and the universalist ideals that continue to engender humanitarian, cosmopolitan, rights-based, and imperialist moral-political projects around the world.--Political and Legal Anthropology Review In this breakthrough ethnography of the World Tribunal on Iraq, Ayca Cubukcu raises new questions about the contemporary politics of human rights. She challenges the ease with which many hew to noble aspirations, as if crimes and mistakes in name of human rights were merely incidental perversions. Anyone concerned with the fate of cosmopolitanism in our era of the love of humanity and perpetual war must read this book.--Samuel Moyn, author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World Mixing ethnographic material on the conduct of the World Tribunal on Iraq with analysis grounded in political theory and international law, Ayca Cubukcu's outstanding book offers thought-provoking arguments alongside first-hand reflections on the WTI's deliberations.--Stephen Hopgood, University of London Part of what makes this book so impressive is that its radical vision is sustained and deepened by sophisticated reference to the ideas of many of the leading European political philosophers of the last 100 years and by a social science methodology that relies on an ethnographic record compiled by a participant observer who doubles as author. This fine, memorable book possesses a theoretical and practical significance that extends well beyond the confines of the World Tribunal on Iraq experience.--London Review of International Law This remarkable book about the World Tribunal on Iraq (set up shortly after the U.S. invasion by a multinational network of activists and scholars) is at once a valuable ethnography and a timely history of the present. It forces the reader to confront the conflicts between the legal and political perspectives that dominate our understanding of international affairs. For anyone concerned with global justice, For the Love of Humanity is essential--because thought-provoking--reading.--Talal Asad, The Graduate Center, City University of New York What is the legacy of the World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI)? How can for the love of humanity be understood when it is used for both imperialist and anti-war arguments? These issues are elegantly interrogated by Ayca Cubukcu, --Middle East Journal