In Purging the Odious Scourge of Atrocities, Bruce Cronin explains the growth of a small body of human rights law that bans the use of violence against a state's own population when it is deemed a mass atrocity, regardless of whether they have accepted it by signing treaties, or whether it is consistent with widespread state practice. Specifically, Cronin offers a theory of international law that explains how the international community developed universal bans on genocide; widespread, systematic attacks on civilian populations; torture; and the violation of civilian immunity in civil wars. By allowing us to rethink the mechanisms that give international law actual force, Purging the Odious Scourge of Atrocities promises to reshape our understanding of why states abide by human rights norms they never consented to by treaty.
