This review by Richard Just contains much that is of interest and I encourage you to read it in full. But I'll just focus on one passage from it:
[Mahmood] Mamdani's book nicely exemplifies one pole in the old and ongoing struggle between two sometimes contradictory impulses of liberal foreign policy: the opposition to imperialism and the devotion to human rights. If liberals view anti-imperialism as their primary philosophical commitment, then they will be reluctant to meddle in the affairs of other countries, even when they are ruled by authoritarian governments - as in Sudan - that abuse their own people. But if liberalism's primary commitment is to human rights, then liberals will be willing to judge, to oppose, and even to undermine such governments.
I'd like to suggest for my part that anyone who views anti-imperialism as their primary philosophical commitment is no liberal if they also take this commitment to mean that human rights are secondary to a principle of universal non-meddling in the affairs of other countries, no exceptions made. And in order to cover the fact that many anti-imperialists wouldn't call themselves liberals in the first place, I would want to add to this suggestion a second one: namely, that anyone on the left who views anti-imperialism as their primary philosophical commitment is of the part of the left that is verkrappt if they take this commitment to mean that human rights are secondary to a principle of universal non-meddling in the affairs of other countries, no exceptions made.
Why? Because the only reason, the good reason, for opposing imperialism, for opposing meddling by force in the affairs of other countries, for respecting national sovereignty, is that the lives of individuals, the flourishing of individuals, their protection against arbitrary violence and other unjust impositions and interferences, the protection of their human rights, by and large depend upon their living in political communities and under governments that undertake to secure these things for them. If the governments fail to do it, or worse still become agencies of murder and other crimes against them, then a point must be reached where anti-imperialism (or anti-meddling in the relevant sense) loses its rationale; it is dispossessed of its moral foundation. What else could justify anti-meddling anti-imperialism? That the countries, nations, governments in which human rights are now being kicked in the head are entities with moral claims to be respected, come what may? This will not persuade anyone who thinks the moral claims of human groups must be founded on the rights and interests of the individuals composing those groups. Anti-imperialism, anti-meddling and respect for national sovereignty are themselves derivative of a commitment to human rights and human well-being. Or if they aren't, they aren't worth taking seriously. The only issue of genuine interest in this domain is what the threshold should be for overriding national sovereignty. How bad does a government have to be, how many crimes must it pile up, before its prima facie claim to being treated as guarantor of the rights and welfare of those under its jurisdiction is forfeited and can be, quite properly, 'meddled with'? (Via Gene.)