This article applies jus in bello criteria to a relatively novel tactic in asymmetrical warfare: the attempt by a conventionally weaker force to shape the conditions of combat so that the (morally scrupulous) stronger force cannot advance without violating the rules of war. The weaker side accomplishes this by placing its own civilian population before the attacking force: by encouraging or forcing civilians to be human shields, by launching attacks from civilian areas, by provoking reprisal massacres, by creating humanitarian (...) disasters, and by secreting military targets in civilian neighborhoods. This set of tactics is introduced with historical examples taken from recent conflicts in the Balkans and the Middle East. The paper argues that the doctrine of double effect is largely inapplicable to these tactics due to their publicity-seeking nature; that enemy war crimes do not reciprocally release the attacker from his moral obligations; and that responsibility for vulnerable civilians devolves to anyone with the power to offer them protection. Specific tactical recommendations are generated for situations where the deployment of this tactic can be anticipated, for situations where the attacker is and is not immediately imperiled by its use, and in situations where attempts at discrimination are futile. (shrink)

In 1983 the US Catholic bishops noted that "insufficient analytical attention has been given to the moral issues of revolutionary warfare." Decades later systematic analysis of armed revolutionary resistance remains a lacuna within theological scholarship on war and peacemaking. While nonviolence is always preferable, traditional just war criteria can and should be revised to provide guidelines for ethical, armed, revolutionary resistance. Examining the just war criteria of legitimate authority, last resort, and proportionality not from the perspective (...) of society's dominant classes but from that of the oppressed begins to yield a theory of just revolution. When properly met, revised understandings of the just war criteria allow for limited armed resistance as a moral response to severe repression. (shrink)

In what circumstances is it legitimate to use force? How should force be used? These are two of the most crucial questions confronting world politics today. The Just War tradition provides a set of criteria which political leaders and soldiers use to defend and rationalize war. This book explores the evolution of thinking about just wars and examines its role in shaping contemporary judgements about the use of force, from grand strategic issues of whether states have a (...) right to pre-emptive self-defence, to the minutiae of targeting. Bellamy maps the evolution of the Just War tradition, demonstrating how it arose from a myriad of sub-traditions, including scholasticism, the holy war tradition, chivalry, natural law, positive law, Erasmus and Kant's reformism, and realism from Machiavelli to Morgenthau. He then applies this tradition to a range of contemporary normative dilemmas related to terrorism, pre-emption, aerial bombardment and humanitarian intervention. (shrink)

This essay considers whether the just war tradition is compatible with Christian theologically grounded conceptions of mercy. After considering and rejecting positions that pit mercy and war against each other, the essay mines the work of Walter Kasper and James Keenan on Christian mercy to develop a position that reimagines mercy as compatible with traditional just war criteria. In particular, this analysis leads to the conclusion that Christians may endorse just war in the form of humanitarian (...) intervention. By doing so, they allow mercy to temper the aspects of warfare that diminish the humanity of others. (shrink)

This article analyses current trends in and future expectations of nanotechnology and other key enabling technologies for security as well as dual use nanotechnology from the perspective of the ethical Just War Theory (JWT), interpreted as an instrument to increase the threshold for using armed force for solving conflicts. The aim is to investigate the relevance of the JWT to the ethical governance of research. The analysis gives rise to the following results. From the perspective of the JWT, military (...) research should be evaluated with different criteria than research for civil or civil security applications. From a technological perspective, the boundaries between technologies for civil and military applications are fuzzy. Therefore the JWT offers theoretical grounds for making clear distinctions between research for military, civil security and other applications that are not obvious from a purely technological perspective. Different actors bear responsibility for development of the technology than for resorting to armed force for solving conflicts or for use of weapons and military technologies in combat. Different criteria should be used for moral judgment of decisions made by each type of actor in each context. In addition to evaluation of potential consequences of future use of the weapons or military technologies under development, the JWT also prescribes ethical evaluation of the inherent intent and other foreseeable consequences of the development itself of new military technologies. (shrink)

This essay challenges a "meta-theory" in just war analysis that purports to bridge the divide between just war and pacifism. According to the meta-theory, just war and pacifism share a common presumption against killing that can be overridden only under conditions stipulated by the just war criteria. Proponents of this meta-theory purport that their interpretation leads to ecumenical consensus between "just warriors" and pacifists, and makes the just war theory more effective in reducing (...) recourse to war. Engagement with the new meta-theory reveals, however, that these purported advantages are illusory, made possible only by ignoring fundamental questions about the nature and function of political authority that are crucial to all moral reflection on the problem of war. (shrink)

The present article discusses a well-known religious philosophical and partially legal doctrine of the “Just war”, developed in the Christian tradition by St. Augustine, St. Tomas Aquinas, Francisco de Vittoria, Francisco Suarez, Hugo Grotius and many other thinkers. The main thesis of the doctrine is that war will be just only if it corresponds to certain criteria, such as autoritas principi (waged by the sovereign), justa causa (on just aim) and with recta intentio (animus) or the (...) aim and will to wage war in order to restore justice and not because of personal hate, revenge, lust for glory, etc. However, the impact of the doctrine was not limited by the Middle Ages and the Christian philosophic discourse. This doctrine shaped both emerging international law and international humanitarian law in one or another way. Even though it did not survive intact through the changing reality of the world, it is not so hard to trace the reflections of this doctrine even in contemporary international law. For example, while evaluating the armed conflict we still use the autoritas principi principle (armed conflicts may be fought only by defined subjects such as states or militarily - politically organised dissidents), moreover, when we are dealing with the concept of combatancy, the same principle applies in establishing whether a person is a legal fighter in the conflict or not, because his status directly stems from his belonging to the party of the conflict. With its strictly limited possibilities to use force, the contemporary jus contra bellum also somewhat resembles the doctrine, not only in the sense of justa causa (such as a possibility of unilateral use of force by the state only in self-defence) but also in recta intentio (e.g. the United Nations Security Council may order the use of force only with the intention to re-establish peace). Therefore, even though the doctrine is the product of the Middle Ages thought, it is not forgotten in our days. The possible military strike against Iran in order to stop it from developing nuclear weapon is already discussed in the light of this doctrine. Moreover, authors (though mainly not lawyers) discussing inadequacies of current international legal framework for the use of force (e.g. the need for humanitarian intervention) find their inspiration in the doctrine. (shrink)

Recent decades have witnessed rape and sexual violence used on such a massive scale and often in a widespread and systematic program that the international community has had to recognize that rape and sexual violence are not just war crimes but might be crimes against humanity or even genocide. I suggest that just war theory, while limited in its applicability to mass rape, might nevertheless offer some framework for making the determination of when sexual violence and rape constitute (...) war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide. In addition, just war theory can provide the normative justification individual soldiers need to resist orders and actions that demonstrate egregious moral breakdown as found in instances of mass rape and systematic use of sexual violence, and just war criteria demonstrate that the use of rape and sexual violence in war time can never be legitimated, especially in the case of prisoner interrogation. (shrink)

This essay discusses four recent books on the Western, and one book on the classical Chinese, traditions of just war. It concentrates on the jus ad bellum moral criteria, giving attention to the centrality of the state in just war morality, to some challenges in reconceptualizing the jus ad bellum in the context of non-state agents, and to controversies over a “presumption against war.”.

This paper suggests that certain characteristics of resourcerelated conflict reveal areas of contemporary Just War Theory that are insufficiently rigorous or robust in their current form. Water security in particular, reveals ambiguity in the Just War framework’s treatment of the jus ad bellum criteria of ‘just cause,’ which in turn challenges the credibility of the entire system. The insufficiency that is exposed has consequences for the effectiveness and cogency of the bodies of international law and global (...) community, which are fundamentally based, and function according to, this predominantly Western moral framework. Key problem areas relating to flexible notions of ‘aggression,’ coincide with a persistent dilemma of simultaneously advocating responsibility to a global community while maintaining sovereign rights and security. Focusing on the ‘just cause’ criteria, justification for acts of war over certain resources is evaluated. Worryingly, the same powerful strategic reasons that might motivate a state to engage in what would otherwise be labelled a ‘realist’ war over certain resources, appear to gain moral merit through interpretation of the jus ad bellum in the specific case of water security, while argument against military action appears increasingly absolutist and impractical. The aim here then is to show the vulnerability of a dangerous prescriptive void in the Just War framework itself. Central to this is the question of the moral weight and significance, if any, of vital resources, as defined by strategic and humanitarian necessity. (shrink)

Abstract Is the use of armed force by international forces in Afghanistan ethically justified? The answer is one of degree: the fighting is neither completely just nor completely unjust. To evaluate the extent of justification, a novel Just War Index (JWI) is introduced. It is a composite indicator: the average of estimated values for seven criteria from the long-standing Just War tradition ? Just Cause, Right Intent, Net benefit, Legitimate Authority, Last Resort, Proportionality of Means (...) and Right Conduct, each of which are evaluated on a 7-point scale. Because the two international missions using armed force in Afghanistan ? the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) ? have different mandates, different histories and different approaches to the use of force, they are evaluated separately. The ISAF mission is found considerably more justified than OEF though still ethically deficient. (shrink)

In the article, I examine the relevance of Just War Doctrine to contemporary conflicts. Just War Doctrine, which grew out of Western Christian thinking, presupposes that evil might be confronted with force, if there is no alternative way to restore a just order. But modern trends call into question the certainty and universality of this doctrine. On the one hand, ideas of moral relativism and comparative justice have become more widespread, potentially undermining the use of the notions (...) “just” and “justified” in relation to military conflicts. On the other hand, the nature of war is changing, as warfare is no longer only kinetic in character. I offer examples of how the evolving character of warfare challenges the traditional understanding of Just War Doctrine. For example, there is the growing threat of cyber warfare, but the ethical criteria for its use are not defined. In relation to Just War Doctrine, questions of whether and when pre-emptive cyber attack is permissible arise, what should constitute legitimate targets of cyber warfare and to what degree collateral damage could be acceptable. Another challenge to the traditional understanding of Just of War Doctrine was the putative doctrine of humanitarian intervention.Prima facie,humanitarian interventions do not comply withius ad bellumcriteria of Just War Doctrine, because of the absence of a direct military threat to the intervening state. The justification of humanitarian intervention is based on the assertion of an intolerable violation of accepted values. The weakness of such approach, as discussed in the article, is that it implicitly assumes that one protagonist’s values are superior to others. A further example of emerging challenges to Just War Doctrine is the phenomenon of hybrid war, a term used to describe a type of conflict that is multi-faceted and in which kinetic warfare is not dominant. The orchestration of several strands of conflict, each designed to be below the threshold to provoke a military response, exploits the absence of legal and ethical norms regulating such activity. I conclude the article by suggesting that, firstly, for Just War Doctrine to remain relevant, it should be expanded to include harms caused by non-kinetic actions, and, secondly, the distinctions between the states of war and peace should be redefined to reflect the changing character of war more accurately. (shrink)

Proponents of probabilism argued that 'when an opinion is probable it may be followed even when the contrary opinion is more probable'. Gabriel Vazquez (1549-1604) was the first Jesuit theologian to defend and expand this doctrine. The prevalent theory of sovereignty at the time held that: (1) when sovereigns are victims of wrongs, they take on the role of international judges (thus just wars are just punishments); and (2) the sovereign need not stand before the judgment of any (...) other human being. The conjunction of probabilism and the idea of the sovereign as a superior judge made it conceptually possible for a war to be just on both sides. The reason is that probabilism allows two sovereigns to inculpably carry out two conflicting but probable judicial sentences about the same case. Confronted with this problem, Vazquez decided to eliminate the overlap between sovereign jurisdictions by revising the then dominant conception of sovereign supremacy and proposing criteria for determining > the competent forum to settle sovereign disputes. His views developed during his involvement in the controversy about Castilian claims to the Portuguese throne. (shrink)

This essay addresses two growing edges of the just war tradition. First, theorists have been accused of focusing narrowly on justifying war and governing its conduct, neglecting wider considerations that encompass justice during the years prior to and after war. Second, calling a war "just" allegedly makes it seem "good" so that it is easier to fight a war and to bend or set aside the rules. Based on "imperfect justice," we argue for a "justified" war theory, taking (...) all criteria and categories seriously, including jus ante bellum and jus post bellum. (shrink)

Just War scholarship has adapted to contemporary crises and situations. But its adaptation has spurned debate and conversation--a method and means of pushing its thinking forward. Now the Just War tradition risks becoming marginalized. This concern may seem out of place as Just War literature is proliferating, yet this literature remains welded to traditional conceptualizations of Just War. Caron E. Gentry and Amy E. Eckert argue that the tradition needs to be updated to deal with substate (...) actors within the realm of legitimate authority, private military companies, and the questionable moral difference between the use of conventional and nuclear weapons. Additionally, as recent policy makers and scholars have tried to make the Just War criteria legalistic, they have weakened the tradition's ability to draw from and adjust to its contemporaneous setting. The essays in The Future of Just War seek to reorient the tradition around its core concerns of preventing the unjust use of force by states and limiting the harm inflicted on vulnerable populations such as civilian noncombatants. The pursuit of these challenges involves both a reclaiming of traditional Just War principles from those who would push it toward greater permissiveness with respect to war, as well as the application of Just War principles to emerging issues, such as the growing use of robotics in war or the privatization of force. These essays share a commitment to the idea that the tradition is more about a rigorous application of Just War principles than the satisfaction of a checklist of criteria to be met before waging "just" war in the service of national interest. (shrink)

Feminist critiques of intention challenge some aspects of traditional just war reasoning, including the criteria of right intention and discrimination. I take note of these challenges and propose some directions just war reasoners might take in response. First, right intention can be evaluated more accurately by judging what actors in war actually do than by attempting to uncover inward dispositions. Assessing whether agents in war have taken due care to minimize foreseeable collateral damage, avoided intentional targeting of (...) noncombatants, corrected previous mistakes in their later actions, and taken responsibility to repair unintended damage they cause are examples of ways in which just war reasoners can evaluate intention by looking at actions. (shrink)

This article argues that the traditional jus ad bellum and jus in bello criteria are fully capable of providing the ethical guidance needed to legitimately conduct military cyber operations. The first part examines the criteria’s foundations by focusing on the notion of liability to defensive harm worked out by revisionist just war thinkers. The second part critiques the necessity of alternative frameworks, which its proponents assert are required to at least supplement the traditional just war (...) class='Hi'>criteria. Using the latter, the third part evaluates ethical issues germane to responding to cyber force, including casus belli, moral aspects of “the attribution problem,” and respective rights and duties when attacks involve innocent third-party states. The fourth part addresses in bello issues, including compliance with discrimination, necessity, and civilian due care imperatives; whether civilians may be targeted with sub-“use of force” cyber-attacks and the permissibility of using civilian contractors to conduct cyber-attacks. Throughout these analyses, conclusions are brought into conversation with those of The Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare. (shrink)

Abstract Finding the western just war criterion of reasonable chance of success to be a contribution to ethical decision making about armed conflict requires dealing with a number of critiques. Specifying ?probability? rather than the alternatives ?hope? or ?chance?, and raising standards of evidence involved, makes the term less vague. Expanding the concept of ?success? to include morally defensible aims that can be achieved without military victory enriches the understanding of the moral relationship between ends and means in armed (...) conflict. Asking decision makers to accept moral responsibility for the costs of possible failure is a unique contribution to the just war criteria. The enriched concept of reasonable probability of success thus offers morally significant insights to prewar jus ad bellum decisions, and can benefit ethical decision-making about whether to continue once fighting has begun. (shrink)

This paper highlights the relevance of moral authority, and the role that egoistic ethical claims have in waging war. This is done, in view of the just war tradition, by drawing a parallel between the crusades in the 'kingdom of heaven' proclaimed in 1095, and the present Islamic jih d , as well as the Bush administration's declaration of a war on terror. It maintains that the role of self-legitimized leaders is crucial in shaping the order of the jus (...) ad bellum criteria, in both Christian and Muslim societies, and that the indiscriminate usage of just war rhetoric proves to be a formidable weapon. Moral authority is described as a power resource, capable of capsizing the relevance of ethics, subjecting the interpretation of justice to declare war to the self-proclaimed authorities, and moving masses on the grounds of enthusiasm. (shrink)

This paper raises some questions about Biggar’s accounts of the just cause and proportionality criteria for a just war. With respect to just cause, it argues that Biggar is committed to a broader range of justifications for war than one might think. Regarding proportionality, it claims that his account thereof invites reflection on the morality of conscription, and, more important still, given the book’s main aim—to refute Christian pacifism—in fact should lead him to embrace pacifism.

The “right intention” requirement, in the form of a requirement that the agent must have a justified true belief that the mind-independent conditions of the justification to use force are fulfilled, is not an additional criterion, but one that constrains the interpretation of the other criteria. Without it, the only possible interpretation of the mind-independent criteria is purely objectivist, that is, purely fact-relative. Pure objectivism condemns self-defense and just war theory to irrelevance since it cannot provide proper (...) action guidance: it is impractically demanding. This means that “revisionist” just war theories which base their doctrine of the moral inequality of combatants on the idea that objective justification defeats liability are irrelevant for the real world, where objective justification is virtually inaccessible. Moreover, only the right intention requirement in the form of a knowledge requirement, as opposed to requiring “good intentions” or “acceptable motivations,” can solve this problem. (shrink)

Abstract The article criticizes the trend of reformulating the traditional just-war criterion of Proper Authority, which was designed to de-legitimize force by non-state actors, into a requirement that decisions to resort to force be multilateral. The article illustrates several shortcomings of the judgment processes of the UN Security Council and General Assembly, the World Court, and states? populations, and argues among other things that reformulating Proper Authority would render other criteria meaningless, especially Just Cause. Finally, the article (...) rebuts the strongest objection to a system in which states judge their own causes for war: the problem of invincible ignorance. (shrink)

War has broken out in the technological global economy, principally in battles over intellectual property. A particularly fierce aspect ofthis battle sets people who guard proprietary software against hackers, who want information to be free. The key challenge today is to produce an adequate conceptual lens for seeing what ethically is at stake in this battle. Toward this end, this paper uses the just war tradition to analyze differences between proponents of Free Software and proponents of Open Source Software. (...) This paper’s use of three just war criteria—Just Cause, Right Intention, and Discrimination—illustrates how the just war tradition can raise the level of ethical awareness about the intellectual property wars that continue to rage in the technological global economy. (shrink)

RESUMEN: Trata este trabajo de la actitud del presidente Barack Obama en relación con las rebeliones de la denominada Primavera Árabe, desvelando si los criterios de la guerra justa por él señalados y defendidos en sus discursos se compaginan con la real política bélica de Estados Unidos. Se insertan ambos planos en el escenario de las rebeliones acaecidas en tres países: Libia, Egipto y Túnez. La conclusión principal es que hay un largo, además de irregular, distanciamiento entre la teoría y (...) la práctica del presidente Obama, prevaleciendo los intereses de Estados Unidos por encima de la protección de los derechos humanos, que es uno de los vectores principales de su concepto de guerra justa.ABSTRACT: This work refers the attitude of the President Barack Obama concerning the rebellions of the so-called Arab Spring, revealing if the criteria of the just war defended in his speeches correspond to the real policy of the United States. Both planes are included in the scene of rebellions occurred in three countries: Libya, Egypt and Tunisia. The main conclusion is that there is a long, as well as irregular, distance between theory and practice of president Obama, prevailing the interests of United States respect to the protection of human rights, which is one of the main vectors of their concept of just war.PALABRAS CLAVE: primavera árabe, guerra justa, rebeliones árabes, Obama y política exterior, Obama y filosofía bélica.KEYWORDS: Arab spring, just war, Arab revolts, Obama and foreign policy, Obama and war philosophy. (shrink)

Abstract It has become almost commonplace to regard the concepts of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and Just War as not only compatible but rather closely connected. Contrary to this position I argue here that some Just War criteria are in significant tension with R2P. This tension results from the fact that Just War only makes war permitted while R2P prescribes an obligation. But R2P and Just War not only are in significant tension, but also suffer (...) from inverted weaknesses: R2P is too demanding while Just War is not demanding enough. Granting that R2P implies a duty to protect, I argue that such a duty is too demanding since it conflicts with the principle of ?ought implies can?, whereas Just War is arguably not far-reaching enough as ?duties-talk? does not fit into its structure. I finish by proposing an interpretation of R2P and Just War which not only eliminates the tension but also compensates for these weaknesses. (shrink)

In the early months of 1991, the United States—in alliance with a number of other nations—fought a large scale air and ground war to evict Iraq's occupying army from the emirate of Kuwait. In this paper, I will consider the question of whether this U.S. military campaign was a just war according to the criteria of traditional just war theory—the only developed moral theory of warfare that we have. My aim, however, is not so much to reach (...) a verdict about the morality of the Gulf War, as it is to identify relevant moral issues, and to reveal certain serious problems of application that are inherent in just war theory itself. Just war theory divides into two parts concerning, respectively, the question of whether or not to fight a particular war , and the question of how the war is conducted . I begin by considering whether it was just, according to the justice of war criteria, for the U.S. to fight the Gulf War at all. I then turn to the question of whether the way the war was conducted satisfied the criteria of justice in war. (shrink)

Beginning with a sketch of the major moral ideas contained in just war tradition, this essay applies them to three controverted issues in contemporary military debate: nuclear deterrence strategy, the strategic defense initiative, and the possibility of building and deploying fractional megatonnage nuclear weapons on delivery vehicles of extremely high accuracy. It is argued that, in terms of the criteria of just war tradition, deterrence in its present form poses grave moral problems. The two new weapons systems (...) are then examined in terms of whether, by just war criteria, they represent more moral means of defense than contemporary nuclear deterrence. (shrink)

Although the use of military force for humanitarian ends seems utterly divorced from the use of such force to combat terrorism, both uses answer to similar descriptions. Both appear to encourage nations that are not necessarily themselves under attack to set aside the reigning conventions of national sovereignty and territorial integrity for the overriding purposes of international law enforcement and protection of vulnerable noncombatants. Both involve offensive rather than purely defensive uses of military force. Both answer to criteria of (...) justification that can be derived more readily from the normative moral principles of the classical just war tradition than from purely descriptive revisions of the 'legalist paradigm' in international relations, because the latter is deeply wedded by precedent to notions of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and a purely defensive use of military force. Most significantly, the justification for both kinds of military action depends essentially upon a notion of 'the international community' that is inchoate and urgently in need of rigorous reformulation. In this paper, I attempt to formulate criteria for the justifiable use of military force for these non-defensive purposes, with attention to the nuances of internationalism that several of the resulting criteria entail. Challenges to the de facto role of the United Nations as the sole authoritative representative of this community, and alternatives to its authority in legitimating the use of military force for purposes of international law enforcement, are considered. (shrink)

Since its early origins, just war discourse has had two contrasting functions: it has sought to speak law and morals to power, and thus to restrain the use of force, but it has also served to authorize and legitimize the use of force. Critical voices have recently alerted to the increasing use of authorization and legitimization in a broader context of hegemonic and unilateral appropriations of just war discourse. In this article, I show that such critiques of (...) class='Hi'>just war have a long history, and reconstruct the powerful challenge that two of the foremost international jurists of the Enlightenment—Christian Wolff and Emer de Vattel—mounted against early modern accounts of just war. Their neglected theory of “regular war” helps us to recover a sense of what a truly pluralist and anti-hegemonic doctrine of ius ad bellum may look like, and reveals a deep tension in the just war tradition between the criteria of political authority and just cause. (shrink)

The tragic unfolding of world events since September 11, 2001, has added great urgency to practical and theoretical issues arising from the phenomenon of international terrorism. This paper applies a traditional concept of just war theory drawing largely on Aquinas and Augustine to legitimate violent action against groups who are not themselves representatives of states. Traditional just war theory is couched largely in terms of the legitimacy of defensive war directed at polities. New applications of the theory are (...) required to deal with contemporary international terrorism. In presenting a new application of the theory I argue that the purely defensive conception of just war advocated in recent Catholic Church documents and taken up by some contemporary theologians and philosophers is problematic. In dialogue particularly with Joseph Boyle, I maintain that traditional just war theory provides the salient criteria for a polity’s violent actions against groups that are not themselves, or at least, need not be polities – including actions that may be characterised as punitive rather than purely defensive in nature. The traditional concept of just war is in this respect more coherent. (shrink)

The nature and scope of government surveillance have intensified debates about liberty and security in a post-9/11 world. Critics of the just war tradition argue it is not able to constructively address these new challenges. Defenders often simply re-affirm its various criteria in making retrospective judgments or clarifying principles. By contrast, this article argues that our political moment—marked by the arbitrary exercise of power, the prospect of permanent war, and the rapid speed of global politics—reinforces the need to (...) frame just war thinking within a constructive account of statecraft and practical reasoning. In particular, I highlight moral dimensions of authority and intention which reveal a fundamental question about what we want from the just war tradition in relation to democratic social criticism and the possibility of political morality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:After the Smoke Clears: The Just War Tradition and Post-War JusticeAnna Floerke ScheidAfter the Smoke Clears: The Just War Tradition and Post-War Justice Mark J. Allman and Tobias L. Winright Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2010. 220 pp. $20.00Beginning with Ezekiel’s imagery of a field filled with dry bones in the aftermath of war, Mark J. Allman and Tobias L. Winright approach the burgeoning question of how (...) best to establish a just peace following violent conflict. As theologians committed to the Christian tradition’s emphasis on restoring peace following warfare, their project develops jus post bellum categories that have thus far been considered more by philosophers, political scientists, and international law scholars than by theologians. The authors see themselves as extending the work of Glen Stassen and other just peacemaking theorists. Where just peacemaking provides theologically rooted criteria for jus ante bellum, Allman and Winright want to root theologically jus post bellum. “We believe that expanding the just war tradition to encompass jus post bellum will actually ‘close the loop’ or make for a more honest just war theory by bringing us back to the practices of just peacemaking” (55–56).The book is presented in two parts. The first part offers an overview of the history of the just war tradition and of the emerging discussion of jus post bellum. Despite its brevity, a key strength of this overview is its comprehensiveness. Allman and Winright illustrate the tradition’s roots in Hellenistic philosophy, its development by patristic and medieval theologians, and finally its adoption in the secular sphere. The authors then uncover nascent elements of jus post bellum throughout the just war tradition. Here they pay particular attention to Immanuel Kant before turning to contemporary philosophers, including perhaps the most well-known jus post bellum theorist, Brian Orend, with whom the authors dialogue extensively in the second part.The second part constitutes the book’s major constructive contribution to the theological ethics of warfare and conflict resolution. The authors posit four “categories” that they argue are “consistent with the Christian just war tradition” and necessary for a just peace following war (85). First, they contend that the just cause, which prompts the war, must be reconsidered jus post bellum. “The logic is simple and clear: the end of a just war must be accomplishing the objectives that served as the grounds for going to war in the first place” (100). Second, the authors explore the need for postconflict reconciliation, arguing [End Page 223] for restorative forms of justice alongside retributive forms. This chapter would benefit from more extensive dialogue with theologians such as John de Gruchy, Robert Schreiter, and Charles Villa-Vicencio, who have devoted themselves to the topics of reconciliation and restorative justice from the Christian perspective. Third, the authors discuss the value of punishment in establishing justice. Their discussion of the symbolic importance of reparations is especially insightful. The authors suggest that “reparations require a reversal of power. Those who once were dominant are now in a submissive/vulnerable position” in relation to those who were once powerless (130). Finally, the authors propose a “restoration phase” following warfare wherein basic security must be established and political reforms enacted to preclude any return to the status quo ante bellum. The victors must ensure the economic recovery of the vanquished; provide for the needs of the war’s most vulnerable victims, such as children; and clean up environmental hazards that resulted from fighting.The book is most impressive in that it conjoins multiple postconflict endeavors (e.g., reconciliation and war crimes tribunals) that are frequently separated or seen as oppositional in other literature. This strength indicates that the book may continue to yield serious contributions to the ethics of conflict resolution, especially as scholars accept the authors’ challenge to “develop and further refine” the categories they propose.Anna Floerke ScheidDuquesne UniversityCopyright © 2012 The Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Given certain well-known empirical facts–including the Bush II administration’s motivations and its actions initiating the war – the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 (and its continuing war of occupation) is not just (i.e., is not morally justified), on any standard interpretation of Just War Theory criteria for jus ad bellum. Since there was no imminent threat of attack by Iraq against the U.S., the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a Preventative or Merely Precautionary War (which is (...) notrecognized by either Just War Theory or international law as a legitimate basis for initiating a war) rather than a Preemptive War (which may sometimes be justified, if there is a real threat of imminent attack) or a Reactive War (responding to an unjustified attack from an aggressor, which is always justified). Moreover, the neo-conservative program for perpetual U.S. world domination by the weakening of other nations and the invasions of weaker nations for purposes of U.S. economic and geopolitical advantage (behind the facade of “spreading democracy and freedom”) is not morally justified. However, the moral status of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan is much less clear. Many argue that is was morally justified according to both Just War Theory and international law, given certain well-established empirical facts; particularly, al-Qaeda’s involvement with the events of 9-11 and the Taliban government’s protection of al-Qaeda and its terrorist infrastructure within Afghanistan. On this analysis, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was justified as both a Reactive War (responding to an unjustified attack against primarily civilian targets) and a Preemptive War (to try to make sure that al-Qaeda did not have the opportunity to use its infrastructure in Afghanistan to arrange other attacks on civilian targets in the U.S. or other nations). But the cogency of this analysis depends on whether there were any realistic alternatives fordisrupting al-Qaeda and bringing its leaders to justice; and some argue that such alternatives did exist. Moreover, even if U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan was morally justified it is arguable that the amount and type of force used – e.g. intensive, wide-spread bombing campaigns that killed many civilians – were not justified. (shrink)

Today, it is widely held that while authorization may be helpful in assuring that the other jus ad bellum criteria are met, legitimate authority is not itself a condition for just recourse to war....

This essay makes three claims about preventive war, which is demarcated from preemptive war and is part of a broader class of ?anticipatory? wars. Anticipatory wars, but especially preventive war, are ?hard cases? for traditional Just War theory; other puzzles for this tradition include nuclear deterrence, humanitarian intervention, and provability a priori of the success of Tit-for-Tat. First, and despite strong assertions to the contrary, it is far from clear that preventive war is absolutely prohibited in traditional Just (...) War Theory, and it is also dubious that it is in all cases ?clearly illegal?. Second, the morality of both preemptive and preventive wars is shown to turn on epistemological considerations: on what degree and kind of justification the primary metaphysical facts of threat can be reasonably believed. Third, an argument is made that whatever epistemic threshold is held to be necessary, some preventive wars will exceed it, and that this is more likely with advancing technologies of information acquisition. Finally, the common argument that allowing all nations to follow policies of preventive war would result in more wars than barring such policies is shown to be mistaken by simulations in game theory. Suggestions are made about the derivation of traditional Just War criteria from more basic moral principles, and about their subtle failures as jointly necessary conditions for the morality of war. (shrink)

I argue that the criterion of just cause is not independent of proportionality and other valid jus ad bellum criteria. One cannot know whether there is a just cause without knowing whether the other (valid) criteria (apart from ‘right intention’) are satisfied. The advantage of this account is that it is applicable to all wars, even to wars where nobody will be killed or where the enemy has not committed a rights violation but can be justifiably (...) warred against anyway. This account also avoids the inefficiency of having proportionality considerations come up at two different points: in a separate criterion of just cause and in the criterion of proportionality proper. ‘Right intention’, the subjective element of the justification of a war, on the other hand, is not to be subsumed under the criterion of just cause: there can be a just cause without anybody knowing it. Conversely, however, the subjective element requires that those responsible for waging the war do know that the justifying objective conditions are fulfilled. This is in one sense more demanding than traditional just war theory; in another sense, however, it is less demanding: nobody needs to intend to fight for a ‘just aim’. (shrink)

Recent just war thought has tended to prioritize just cause among the moral criteria to be satisfied for resort to armed force, reducing the requirement of sovereign authority to a secondary, supporting role: such authority is to act in response to the establishment of just cause. By contrast, Aquinas and Luther, two benchmark figures in the development of Christian thought on just war, unambiguously gave priority to the requirement of sovereign authority as instituted by God (...) to carry out the responsibilities of ensuring a just and peaceful order in the world. On this conception it is the sovereign, in deciding whether to resort to armed force, who must make sure to satisfy the other moral requirements of the jus ad bellum. This paper examines Aquinas and Luther on sovereign authority for use of armed force. Recapturing the importance of this conception is important both for the proper understanding of just war tradition and for working out its implications for such contemporary issues as humanitarian intervention and "regime change.". (shrink)

Before military action, and even before mobilization, the decision on whether to go to war is debated by politicians, pundits, and the public. As they address the right or wrong of such action, it is also a time when, in the language of the just war tradition, the wise would deeply investigate their true claim to jus ad bellum (“the right of war”). Wars have negative consequences, not the least impinging on human life, and offer infrequent and uncertain benefits, (...) yet war is part of the human condition. James G. Murphy’s insightful analysis of the jus ad bellum criteria—competent authority, just cause, right intention, probability of success, last resort, and proportionality—is grounded in a variety of contemporary examples from World War I through Vietnam, the "soccer war" between Honduras and El Salvador, Afghanistan, and the Middle East conflict. Murphy argues persuasively that understanding jus ad bellum requires a primary focus on the international common good and the good of peace. Only secondarily should the argument about going to war hinge on the right of self-defense; in fact, pursuing the common good requires political action, given that peace is not simply the absence of violence. He moves on to demonstrate the interconnectedness of the jus ad bellum criteria, contending that some criteria depend logically on others—and that competent authority, not just cause, is ultimately the most significant criterion in an analysis of going to war. This timely study will be of special interest to scholars and students in ethics, war and peace, and international affairs. (shrink)

The centuries-old lost War Doctrine can be a model for framing the journalistic ethics decision making process - a Just Journalism moral test of intended action against anticipated effects. A just journalism paradigm provides a clear set of criteria to be argued and met in considering action that approaches or crosses such borders of extreme professional practice as deception or intrusions into personal privacy. The debate provides a sharper focus on the effects of actions through balancing intentions, (...) justice, methods, alternatives - and on who should be involved. This article develops a lust Journalism Doctrine by translating Just War criteria into journalistic counterparts. A discussion shows how the criteria can be applied to deception and in evaluating the moral fit of naming of both accused and accuser in a rape case. (shrink)

In this book Uwe Steinhoff describes and explains the basic tenets of just war theory and gives a precise, succinct and highly critical account of its present status and of the most important and controversial current debates surrounding it. Rejecting certain in effect medieval assumptions of traditional just war theory and advancing a liberal outlook, Steinhoff argues that every single individual is a legitimate authority and has under certain circumstances the right to declare war on others or the (...) state. He also argues that the just cause cannot be established independently of the other criteria of jus ad bellum (the justification of entering a war), except for right intention, which he interprets more leniently than the tradition does. Turning to jus in bello (which governs the conduct of a war) he criticizes the Doctrine of Double Effect and concludes that insofar as wars kill innocents, and be it as "collateral damage", they cannot be just but at best justified as the lesser evil. Steinhoff gives particular attention to the question why soldiers, allegedly, are legitimate targets and civilians not. Discussing four approaches to the explanation of the difference he argues that the four principles underlying them all need to be taken into account and outlines how their weighing can proceed if applied to concrete cases. The resulting approach does not square the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate targets with the distinction between soldiers and civilians, which has extremely important consequences for the conduct of war. Finally, Steinhoff analyses the concept of terrorism and argues that some forms of "terrorism" are actually not terrorism at all and that even terrorism proper can under certain circumstances be justified. (shrink)

Abstract Right intention is one of the staple criteria of traditional just war theory. In classical terms, right intention is met when a belligerent aims to achieve a just and peaceful order. I will address the problem of determining when a belligerent has satisfied the criterion of right intention. I will argue that right intention is determined by observing a belligerent's acts during and after a conflict. Intention is not merely a private mental act known ultimately only (...) by the people who express the intentions of their governments. Rather, right intention is a communal, public act, for the observable circumstances are how intention is determined. I will demonstrate the effectiveness of this way of determining intention by concentrating on the stated intentions of the Allies before World War II and of the U.S. before the First and Second Gulf Wars. The goal of the paper is to demonstrate that the international community can check a belligerent's stated intentions both while the war is in progress and after the war has ended. I will argue that how well a belligerent conforms to the jus in bello and, when appropriate, to the jus post bellum, provide the international community with much of the information it needs to determine whether or not right intention has been met. (shrink)

The conduct of hostilities is very bad for the environment, yet relatively little attention has been focused on environmental military ethics by just war theorists and revisionist philosophers of war. Contemporary ecological concerns pose significant challenges to jus in bello. I begin by briefly surveying existing literature on environmental justice during wartime. While these jus in bello environmental issues have been addressed only sparsely by just war theorists, environmental jus ad bellum has rarely been tackled within JWT or (...) the morality of war. In line with the theme of this special issue, I focus my discussion of war and the natural environment primarily on the jus ad bellum level. I set out with the presumption against the use of force, and its possible exceptions. The principal question raised is whether environmental harm can trigger a new justification for war. Beyond just cause, I consider what might be a proportionate response to “environmental aggression,” or negligent harm to nature. The use of force is clearly justified in response to military attacks, against the natural environment or otherwise. Where harm to nature or its inhabitants are not caused by military aggression, just war theory criteria point in favor of responding via measures short of war. Finally, I suggest that responding by means that are not themselves harmful to nature serves to fulfill the further jus ad bellum criterion of “right intention.”. (shrink)

If SAMCRO can legitimately declare war, then the Sons of Anarchy may still be bad boys, but at least they' are not immoral butchers. The just war theory spells out the criteria that must be met for the use of armed force to be morally justified. They are: Just Cause, Proportionality, Necessity, Right Authority, and Likelihood of Success. To be just, a war must fulfill all six criteria. The chapter presents arguments that suggest, in principle (...) at least, that SAMCRO does have the authority to declare war against an adversary. The club is not so different from existing political institutions. Like all great television, Sons of Anarchy can teach us a lot about the real world. We do not need to condone everything SAMCRO does. But we should be careful not to condemn everything the club does either, even when it resorts to violence. (shrink)

This collection of essays represents a sample of the work carried out on the various urgent issues arising from the contemporary "war in terror" by researchers in the Department of Politics and International Relations, Swansea University UK and/or who attended the 2005 conference on politics and ethics at the University of Southern Mississippi (Gulf Coast). Certain specific topics are obviously prompted by this general theme; others dealt with in this book are perhaps not as obviously connected to it - though (...) they are no less important for that. This book is therefore intended to cover some ground in both types of topic and it is to be hoped that its contents will stimulate further reflection and writing on the deep controversies that recent events in world politics have stoked. However misguided much of the debate has been, many have contended that the present era is witnessing a "clash of civilisations", in which fundamentally different value-systems confront each other with their mutually opposed and antagonistic views of the world. This position often undergirds a moral relativism, which denies that there are any universal values: all we have, according to this outlook, are the different values of different cultures seeking (insofar as they "clash") to impose themselves on others. In the first essay, James Beard counters this argument with a case for what he calls a "thin universalism", a relatively sparse but powerful set of fundamental values which can credibly be demonstrated to have universal application.Many who supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq now oppose it, not on the grounds that they were wrong at the outset but that hindsight and subsequent events have given them new reasons to revise their judgements. This has led some to think that arguments about whether a war is just, and justified, can very often only be satisfactorily made "down the line", thus excusing initial support for a conflict which thereafter goes badly wrong. In her article, Christine Stender reminds us of many of the considerations that were available in 2003 itself which readily led to just-war arguments against launching the invasion at the time. It may be easy for the passage of time to cause us to forget those factors. But, given that we can only become more adept at making just-war judgements by reflecting on past experience, it is crucial not to let them disappear in the morass of subsequent experience. Arguably, the Abu Ghraib scandal did more than any other single event to undermine what moral credibility the American occupation of Iraq ever had. It certainly raised acute questions about the conception of "virtue" that the role of combatant in war ought to necessitate and, in his essay, J. Joseph Miller subjects this issue to close philosophical scrutiny, with particular focus on the ethics of torture. Traditional just war theory has been composed of two elements: jus ad bellum, which sets out moral criteria which may sanction the resort to war, and jus in bello, which provides moral rules for its actual conduct. Recent events, and in particular the tragically chaotic situation of post-invasion Iraq, have helped to make the case for a third element: jus post bellum, which deals with the rights and responsibilities of just combatants with respect to the pursuit of a just peace once conflict has ended. This remains an under-researched area and, in their article, Mark Evans and Christine Stender introduce a wide-ranging set of considerations towards the construction of an adequate account of jus post bellum. A concept that has surged to the fore in recent times has been that of a "failed state", which has been invoked as part of arguments for "humanitarian intervention." (Afghanistan is perhaps the most obvious and pertinent example.) It is, however, a highly contentious concept and many think it has nothing other than ideological, polemical value. Whilst admitting that it is prone to such (mis)use, Mark Evans argues, in his essay, that it can be given a determinate and useful normative content, even if it does not necessarily sanction the kind of foreign policies which certain Western leaders have thought it does. Most liberal democracies have responded to the "terror threat" by introducing emergency legislation, or by otherwise suspending in some way what they would "ordinarily" have regarded as inviolable basic liberties and legal safeguards. Nazeer Patel argues that this dangerously undercuts the moral authority that these states claim for themselves and urges that we rethink how liberal democracy should appropriately respond to terrorism; it may take courage not to "overreact" against it, but he plausibly suggests a more measured and morally preferable attitude for it to take. Finally, in her essay, Claire Delisle focuses on one of the more bitter conflicts within a liberal democracy of recent times which has, it seems, been resolved in favour of peaceful accommodation: that between the Nationalist and Unionist communities in the north of Ireland/Ulster. The full story of how this peace became possible has yet to be fully told, and she adds a vital element to the tale, of how incarcerated combatants developed attitudes, strategies and a culture which built the foundations for a process that eventually brought "The Troubles" to what, it is to be hoped, is a permanent end. With the exception of the editor's contributions, the research which is published here is the product of the intellectual labours of scholars who are in the early stages of their careers. This volume is, therefore, a compendium of work in progress and the authors hope that this publication will help to further their reflections; certainly, the issues with which they engage are a long way indeed from being exhausted in terms of the scholarly attention they demand. Obviously, their appearance together in the same volume should not be taken to imply that any of the contributors endorse anything of what any of the others argue. (shrink)

Roman Catholic teaching holds both that wars must conform to certain criteria in order to be considered morally justifiable, and that individuals are accountable for the moral content of their actions. Are Catholics serving in the armed forces therefore required to refuse to serve in unjust wars? Are they entitled--or obligated--to defer to the judgments of others as to whether a war is just? If so, whose judgment? I suggest that there are exceptional characteristics of military service that (...) may factor in the formation of conscience as it is described in Catholic teaching. Specifically, just as the Church sees the indispensable role of the armed forces in protecting society as reconciling the use of force with the Catholic injunction to seek peace, so too may the indispensable role of obedience and deference to authority in the armed forces--while never supplanting the responsibilities of individual discernment--reconcile fighting in an unjust war with the obligations of conscience. (shrink)