Genocide, Ethnonationalism, and the United Nations examines a series of related crises in human civilization growing out of conflicts between powerful states or empires and indigenous or stateless peoples. Centered round themes of international governance, human rights and law, Hannibal Travis argues that contemporary law defines people, whether that be by physical characteristics, language, culture and religion, politics, geography, or, more likely, by some combination of these. It is therefore possible to identify distinct "people" within the human species, each of which has the right to govern or "determine" itself freely and outside of the constitutional and political structures of the state.
Questions raised include:
- Is it morally or legally legitimate for a state whose survival or borders are threatened to respond with disproportionate force to liberation movements, secessionist conspiracies, or external interference in its affairs?
- Have the United Nations or the International Criminal Court faced up to these problems, as is their mandate?
- What has human rights law contributed to the notion of collective or "national" rights?
