Human Shields

A chilling global history of the human shield phenomenon—now with urgent new reflections on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

In practically all contemporary wars, human shields are used to protect, coerce, deter, and legitimize lethal violence. Over the past decade, human shields have also appeared with increasing frequency in antinuclear struggles, civil and environmental protests, and even computer games. Those who use civilians to protect legitimate military targets commit a war crime; yet, accusing the enemy of hiding behind defenseless civilians has become a pretext for exercising inhumane violence. 

Human Shields covers key historical and contemporary moments across the globe, from Syrian civilians locked in iron cages to the conflict in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza. 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. Showing how the law facilitates the use of lethal violence against vulnerable people while portraying it as humane, 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.