British counterinsurgency has recently been in the dock for what it was not held accountable for historically—hence, for instance, the 2012 British High Court decision that Britain practiced unlawful force against detainees in the Kenyan Emergency of 1952–1960. Yet the international context was changing even during the Kenyan conflict. The United Nations General Assembly was gaining more former colonial members. Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions (ratified by Britain in 1957) obliged combatants to treat civilians and prisoners humanely even in disputes of a non-international character. As Brian Drohan explains in Brutality in an Age of Human Rights, this advance of protections reinforced the determination of the International Committee of the Red Cross to get access to prisoners in insurgencies (105). Britain also recognized the right of states (effective 1953) and of individuals (1966) to make “applications” to the European Commission of Human Rights under the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950. The Greek government brought Britain to the attention of the commission in May 1956 and again in July 1957 (42, 47–80) over emergency legislation in Cyprus in general and then over specific allegations of torture. By the 1960s, organizations such as the Arab League were ready to amplify accusations of abuses, and domestically the foundation in Britain of Amnesty International in 1961 provided another tool for coordinating public, and parliamentary, pressure.

Drohan traces the British response to the resulting increase in “human rights activism” across three campaigns. He outlines each campaign with sparkling clarity before moving on to trace the resulting human rights and humanitarian activism and the British response to it. The press was particularly important in Cyprus, whereas radio predominated in Aden (including Egypt's Voice of the Arabs), and the combined newspaper-radio and television coverage in Northern Ireland was sometimes intense (15).

The political, legal, infrastructural, and normative context in which counterinsurgency had to be waged was shifting, yet not enough to prevent Britain from sweeping aside early accusations of abuses in Kenya. So what else had to be in place for to make pressure effective?

Drohan suggests that it needed effective human rights activists, and demonstrates how these emerged in the Cyprus Emergency (1955–1960), the Aden conflict (1963–1967), and the early years of the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland (1969–1974). In Cyprus the legal profession (Cyprus Bar Council) played a key part, persuading some judges that there was doubt a confession had been “free and voluntary” (29). In Aden, a mainly Indian legal profession was less sympathetic to nationalists. But the press, the Arab League, and Amnesty International combined to increase pressure in Aden, together forcing an investigation into detention in Aden in 1966. For Northern Ireland, its status as a part of the United Kingdom made press and parliamentary scrutiny all the more intense, though how many of the resulting changes—such as dropping interment and moving towards a policing approach from 1976—were due to rights activism is difficult to say.

Somewhat depressingly, Drohan sees the result of increasing external pressure as less than clear. Britain viewed its reputation for supporting democracy and human rights as internationally valuable (14) but was unwilling to let go of the ability to fudge issues deemed vital to prosecuting counterinsurgency. Britain therefore developed techniques of “cooperative manipulation” (4) so that it could have a declaratory policy of supporting human rights while permitting, if not tacitly encouraging, deviance in select matters, such as “torture” in interrogation in Cyprus and Aden and the “five techniques” of interrogation in Northern Ireland (standing, hooding, noise deprivation, sleep deprivation, food and drink deprivation). Inquiries were held but more critical language blunted (66–74), controlled access to prisoners given to the International Committee of the Red Cross, and specific powers left in abeyance or rescinded. Most depressingly, even the Bowen inquiry and resulting procedural changes (such as putting a civilian in the Mansoura Detention Centre and instituting strict reporting procedures) had only limited effects in Aden. Torture allegations resurfaced in 1967, and informal battalion interrogation centers put additional abuse beyond the new reporting system's reach. Only where abuse was by expendable individuals and the damage involved in prosecuting minimal did Britain tend to enforce consequences for bad behavior.

Drohan's conclusion that Britain tried “manipulative cooperation” with the likes of the Red Cross complements the work of Hugh Bennett on Aden (in War and History [2016]), and of David French on the Special Investigation Group in Cyprus (Fighting Eoka: The British Counter-Insurgency on Cyprus, 1955–59 [2015], 207–8]). It also hints that Northern Ireland (not Aden, as suggested by Sophia Dingli and Caroline Kennedy's article, “The Aden Pivot?” (Civil Wars 16, no. 1 [2014]: 86–104), might be the inflection point from when states had to react more seriously to activist pressure, as seen in Britain dropping its five interrogation techniques in 1972 in the face of combined press pressure, objections of the Irish state, and possible European Commission of Human Rights action. However, key to that policy shift was also Lord Gardiner's action in publishing a minority report (to the Parker Report) that explicitly suggested the five techniques might be illegal. It seems government had, in trying to get the veneer of impartiality, miscalculated so badly as to get its actuality (160–68). By the 1970s, Drohan argues, the increasing status of the European Commission of Human Rights and of human rights case law (182–83) was having a cumulative effect. Britain still used “manipulative cooperation,” but did so under much more intense scrutiny.

Drohan's work will be of significant interest to anyone looking at the growth of human rights and humanitarian activism in relation to conflict. As with Andrew Thompson's article, “Humanitarian Principles Put to the Test: Challenges to Humanitarian Action During Decolonization” (International Review of the Red Cross 97, no. 897–98 [2015]: 45–76), Drohan makes us puzzle about just how activists can ensure successful change in the face of obfuscation and obduracy. The book ends with a final, apposite reflection on how far the counterinsurgent state now needs to integrate related moral concerns into their doctrine and strategic narratives (193–94).