When should the international community intervene in civil conflict? What made last year’s Libyan conflict suitable for intervention, while Syrians continued to struggle against despotism alone? In this seminal event, David Rieff, a widely published intellectual and the son of Susan Sontag, speaks with former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans (author of Responsibility to Protect) on the ethics of intervention.
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Featuring
Gareth Evans
Gareth Evans is a writer, academic, lawyer and former cabinet minister.
He was a Cabinet Minister in the Hawke and Keating Governments for thirteen years, as Attorney General, Minister for Resources & Energy, Transport & Communications, and Foreign Affairs; Leader of the Government in the Senate for four years; and Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the House of Representative for three years. After 21 years in the Australian Parliament, he led the Brussels-based International Crisis Group from 2000-2009.
Gareth Evans has been Chancellor and Honorary Professorial Fellow of the Australian National University since 2010, and has written or edited twelve books on international relations, government, and legal and constitutional reform.
David Rieff
David Rieff is a New York-based journalist and author.
Now a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, David has written extensively for The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, El Pais, The New Republic, World Affairs, Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs and The Nation.
During the 1990s, David covered conflicts in Africa, the Balkans, and Central Asia. He is the author of eight books, including Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West and A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis. His memoir of his mother, Susan Sontag’s, final illness, Swimming in a Sea of Death, was published in January 2008.