Political philosopher Neal Riemer poses the central question responded to on this volume: "Can an effective Global Human Rights Regime to protect against genocide be put into place---or is this an impossible mission?" (p.1). Riemer challenges the reader to "do more than simply dream of a world free of genocide" but to "break through---creatively, but realistically---to the institutions and actors, principles, and policies that will effectively ensure a genocide-free world (p. 1)." "Perhaps" and "possibilities" are words repeated throughout this volume by a group of social scientists who analyze failures (Rwanda is discussed throughout) and limited successes of past interventions and discuss a range of tough questions from enforcement (Saul Mendlowitz and John Fousek on a UN constabulatory force) to an international criminal court (David Wippman) to humanitarian intervention (Michael Joseph Smith). Political scientist Douglas W. Simon analyzes interventions such as Iraq, Somalia and Bosnia as well as recent developments in the international state system and their possible impact on genocide prevention. George A. Lopez, who has written extensively on sanctions, gives an overview of "how economic sanctions have become a common feature of multilateral regional and big-power foreign policy in the 1990s (p. 67)." Lopez describes different types of sanctions and their varied effectiveness including a thought-provoking section on "Iraq's Ordeal: Can Sanctions be Genocidal?" Helen Fein questions the often uncritical endorsement of democracy as the answer to genocide prevention and uses the example of Rwanda to emphasize that deterrence necessitates a "focus directly on protecting both individuals and groups against gross violations of life-integrity using intelligence analysis, historical interpretation, monitoring and warning systems (p.46)."

After reading Protection against Genocide: Mission Impossible?, I immediately added this informative, well-edited collection of essays to my university course syllabus on Human Rights and Challenges of Caring. The volume provides a needed readable series of essays by social scientists that includes excellent introductory bibliography (and important web-sites in the footnotes) for the general reader as well as specialists who are looking for realistic but creative analyses to debate, analyze and support policies of genocide prevention.