The Rights of War and Peace is the first fully historical account of the formative period of modern theories of international law. Professor Tuck examines the arguments over the moral basis for war and international aggression, and links the debates to the writings of the great political theorists such as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. The book illuminates the presuppositions behind much current political theory, and puts into a new perspective the connection between liberalism and imperialism.

In this essay, Denike assesses the appropriation of international human rights by humanitarian law and policy of "security states." She maps representations of the perpetrators and victims of "tyranny" and "terror, " and their role in providing a "just cause" for the U.S.–led "war on terror. " By examining narratives of progress and human rights heroism Denike shows how human rights discourses, when used together with the pretense of self-defense and preemptive war, do the opposite of what they claim—entrenching the (...) sovereignty of Western imperialist states while eroding the conditions necessary for the recognition of the human rights of others. (shrink)

In this essay, Denike assesses the appropriation of international human rights by humanitarian law and policy of “security states.” She maps representations of the perpetrators and victims of “tyranny” and “terror,” and their role in providing a “just cause” for the U.S.-led “war on terror.” By examining narratives of progress and human rights heroism Denike shows how human rights discourses, when used together with the pretense of self-defense and preemptive war, do the opposite of what they claim—entrenching the sovereignty of (...) Western imperialist states while eroding the conditions necessary for the recognition of the human rights of others. (shrink)

We fear that the growing threat of violent attack has upset the balance between existential concepts of political power, which emphasize security, and traditional notions of constitutional limits meant to protect civil liberties. We worry that constitutional states cannot, during a time of war, terror, and extreme crisis, maintain legality and preserve civil rights and freedoms. David Williams Bates allays these concerns by revisiting the theoretical origins of the modern constitutional state, which, he argues, recognized and made room for tensions (...) among law, war, and the social order. We traditionally associate the Enlightenment with the taming of absolutist sovereign power through the establishment of a legal state based on the rights of individuals. In his critical rereading, Bates shows instead that Enlightenment thinkers conceived of political autonomy in a systematic, theoretical way. Focusing on the nature of foundational violence, war, and existential crises, eighteenth-century thinkers understood law and constitutional order not as constraints on political power but as the logical implication of that primordial force. Returning to the origin stories that informed the beginnings of political community, Bates reclaims the idea of law, warfare, and the social order as intertwining elements subject to complex historical development. Following an analysis of seminal works by seventeenth-century natural-law theorists, Bates reviews the major canonical thinkers of constitutional theory (Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau) from the perspective of existential security and sovereign power. Countering Carl Schmitt's influential notion of the autonomy of the political, Bates demonstrates that Enlightenment thinkers understood the autonomous political sphere as a space of law protecting individuals according to their political status, not as mere members of a historically contingent social order. (shrink)

Human rights law does not appear to enjoy as high a level of compliance as the laws of war, yet is institutionalized to a greater degree. This Article argues that the reason for this difference is related to the strategic structure of international law. The laws of war are governed by a regime of reciprocity, which can produce selfenforcing patterns of behavior, whereas the human rights regime attempts to produce public goods and is thus subject to collective action problems. The (...) more elaborate human rights institutions are designed to overcome these problems but fall prey to second-order collective action problems. The simple laws of war institutions have been successful because they can exploit the logic of reciprocity. The Article also suggests that limits on military reprisals are in tension with self-enforcement of the laws of war. The U.S. conflict with Al Qaeda is discussed. (shrink)

This is a review of historical developments in international criminal law leading up to the inclusion of rape as a "crime against humanity" in the current war crimes tribunal for the ex-Yugoslavia. In addition to the need to understand the specificity of events and their impact on women, the laws of war must also be understood in their specificity and the ways in which even the humanitarian provisions of those laws privilege military needs.

The paper examines the justification of warfare. The main thesis is that war is very difficult to justify, and justification by invoking “justice” is not the way to succeed it. Justification and justness are very different venues: while the first attempts to explain the nature of war and offer possible schemes of resolution, the second aims to endorse a specific type of warfare as correct and hence allowed – which is the crucial part of “just war theory.” However, “just war (...) theory,” somewhat Manichean in its nature, has very deep flaws. Its final result is criminalization of war, which reduces warfare to police action, and finally implies a very strange proviso that one side has a right to win. All that endangers the distinction between ius ad bellum and ius in bello, and destroys the collective character of warfare. Justification of war is actually quite different – it starts from the definition of war as a kind of conflict which cannot be solved peacefully, but for which there is mutual understanding that it cannot remain unresolved. The aim of war is not justice, but peace, i.e. either a new articulation of peace, or a restoration of the status quo ante. Additionally, unlike police actions, the result of war cannot be known or assumed in advance, giving war its main feature: the lack of control over the future. Control over the future, predictability, is a feature of peace. This might imply that war is a consequence of failed peace, or inability to maintain peace. The explanation of this inability forms the justification of war. Justice is always an important part of it, but justification cannot be reduced to it. The logic contained here refers to ius ad bellum, while ius in bello is relative to various parameters of sensitivity prevalent in a particular time, with the purpose to make warfare more humane and less expensive. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe jus ad bellum criterion of right intention is a central guiding principle of just war theory. It asserts that a country’s resort to war is just only if that country resorts to war for the right reasons. However, there is significant confusion, and little consensus, about how to specify the CRI. We seek to clear up this confusion by evaluating several distinct ways of understanding the criterion. On one understanding, a state’s resort to war is just only (...) if it plans to adhere to the principles of just war while achieving its just cause. We argue that the first understanding makes the CRI superfluous, because it can be subsumed under the probability of success criterion. On a second understanding, a resort to war is just only if a state’s motives, which explain its resort to war, are of the right kind. We argue that this second understanding of the CRI makes it a significant further obstacle to justifying war. However, this second understanding faces a possible infinite regress problem, wh... (shrink)

The military might of the modern era poses devastating threats to humankind. Wars result from struggles for material or ideological power. In this context the probability of flouting agreements made during peaceful times is great. The rights of victims and the rights of medical personnel are vulnerable to State and military momentum in the quest for sovereignty. Scholars, scientists and physicians enjoy little enough influence during times of peace and we should be sanguine about their influence during war. But we (...) also must avoid becoming co-opted by partisan political forces. The universal ideals for which we strive, need to be cherished and kept central in our field of vision if we are to rise above man's basest instincts and if we are to preserve professional integrity, individuality and humanitarian concern for the sanctity of life — even the lives of our foes who are engaged in battle against us. Such compassion also recognizes the coercion implicit in recruiting persons into wars they detest and which pits them against their own image. Man's inhumanity to man, most evident during war, must not be allowed to pervade the sanctuary of medical care. Health professionals must constantly be encouraged to serve humankind with empathy and compassion and great social effort needs to be expended to facilitate this role globally and under all conditions. (shrink)

Ever since Eve tempted Adam with her apple, women have been regarded as a corrupting and destructive force. The very idea that women can be used as interrogation tools, as evidenced in the infamous Abu Ghraib torture photos, plays on age-old fears of women as sexually threatening weapons, and therefore the literal explosion of women onto the war scene should come as no surprise. From the female soldiers involved in Abu Ghraib to Palestinian women suicide bombers, women and their bodies (...) have become powerful weapons in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. In _Women as Weapons of War_, Kelly Oliver reveals how the media and the administration frequently use metaphors of weaponry to describe women and female sexuality and forge a deliberate link between notions of vulnerability and images of violence. Focusing specifically on the U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, Oliver analyzes contemporary discourse surrounding women, sex, and gender and the use of women to justify America's decision to go to war. For example, the administration's call to liberate "women of cover," suggesting a woman's right to _bare_ arms is a sign of freedom and progress. Oliver also considers what forms of cultural meaning, or lack of meaning, could cause both the guiltlessness demonstrated by female soldiers at Abu Ghraib and the profound commitment to death made by suicide bombers. She examines the pleasure taken in violence and the passion for death exhibited by these women and what kind of contexts created them. In conclusion, Oliver diagnoses our cultural fascination with sex, violence, and death and its relationship with live news coverage and embedded reporting, which naturalizes horrific events and stymies critical reflection. This process, she argues, further compromises the borders between fantasy and reality, fueling a kind of paranoid patriotism that results in extreme forms of violence. (shrink)

Although Plato writes less about war than we might expect--especially considering the fact that his dialogues are historically set during the Peloponnesian War--the right conduct of war constitutes a crucial concern for Plato. In both the Alcibiades and Laches dialogues, rightful conduct of war is linked to the practice of virtue. Neither a good statesman nor a good military man can ignore this link, which joins military pursuits not only to courage, but to the whole of virtue, including justice. (...) In the Republic , the passage from a luxurious city to a well-ordered and virtuous city is described by means of the proper education of the city's military guardians, and a teaching of ius in bello --to use a just-war term--for wars between Greeks is outlined. Finally, in the Laws , peace, not war, is presented as the true aim of good laws, and the importance of legitimate authority in war-making is duly emphasized. (shrink)

Against the domination of moral deliberation by rights-talk In Defence of War asserts that belligerency can be morally justified, even while it is tragic and morally flawed. Recovering the early Christian tradition of just war thinking, Nigel Biggar argues in favour of aggressive war in punishment of grave injustice.

Against the domination of moral deliberation by rights-talk In Defence of War asserts that belligerency can be morally justified, even while it is tragic and morally flawed. Recovering the early Christian tradition of just war thinking, Nigel Biggar argues in favour of aggressive war in punishment of grave injustice.

This paper discusses children's right to play and its bioethical importance for children affected by war. Against the background of the current military conflicts, it analyses physical, psychological, and institutional factors that limit children's right to play in a situation involving armed conflict. Considering that the lack of institutional support of play for children affected by war constitutes a failure to fulfil our societal and political obligation under Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of (...) the Child, this paper analyses the understanding of play adopted in this legal instrument. In line with the distinctions made in the Convention, it discusses the importance of play for children's life and survival, for their health and well‐being, as well as for the recovery of trauma experienced by children affected by armed conflict. It thereby aims to contribute to the recognition and protection of this right on the grounds of bioethics and healthcare. (shrink)

What role does ethics play in modern-day warfare? Is it possible for ethics and militarism to exist hand-in-hand? James Eastwood examines the Israeli military and its claim to be "the most moral army in the world." This claim has been strongly contested by human rights bodies and international institutions in their analysis of recent military engagements in the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon. Yet at the same time, many in Israel believe this claim: including the general public, military personnel, and (...) politicians. Compiled from extensive research including interviews with soldiers, Eastwood unpacks the ethical pedagogy of the Israeli military, as well as soldier-led activism which voices a moral critique, and argues that the belief in moral warfare does not exist separately from the growing violence of Israel's occupation. This book is ideal for those interested in military ethics and Israeli politics, and provides crucial in-depth analysis for students and researchers alike. It examines theories of morality and ethics in war through a comprehensive study of the Israel Defence Forces. It will appeal to researchers and students exploring military ethics and Israeli politics, international relations, as well as those studying war and politics in the wider Middle East. It also examines theories of morality and ethics in war through a comprehensive study of the Israel Defence Forces. (shrink)

Pauline Kleingeld argues that according to Kant it would be wrong to coerce a state into an international federation, due to the wrongness of paternalism. Although I agree that Kant opposes the waging of war as a means to peace, I disagree with Kleingeld's account of the reasons why he would oppose coercing a state into a federation. Since she does not address the broader question of the permissibility of interstate coercion, she does not properly address the narrower question of (...) whether coercion to compel a state to join a federation can be permissible. I revise and supplement her arguments. (shrink)

"The past two decades have seen renewed scholarly and popular interest in the law and morality of war. Positions that originated in the late Middle Ages through the 17th century have received more sophisticated philosophical elaboration. Although many contemporary writers draw on ideas that figure prominently in Kant's moral philosophy, his explicit discussions of war have not been brought into their proper place within these discussions and debates. Kant argues that a special morality governs the permissible use of force because (...) of wars distinctive immorality. He characterizes war as barbaric, because in war might makes right - which side prevails does not depend on who is in the right. The very thing that makes war wrongful also provides the appropriate standard for evaluating the conduct of war, and the only basis for law governing war"--. (shrink)

Liability, proportionality, and the number of aggressors -- The lesser evil obligation -- Human rights, proportionality, and the lives of soldiers -- Resolving the responsibility dilemma -- Duress and duty -- Can states be corporately liable to attack in war? -- Targeting Al Qaeda: law and morality in the us war on terror -- Adil Ahmad Haque -- Double effect and the laws of war -- Beyond the paradigm of self-defense? on revolutionary violence -- War's endings and the structure of (...) just war theory -- Moral recovery after war: the role of hope. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe juridical force of time forms a critical, but hitherto unexplored part of Hugo Grotius’s discourse on the justice of war and peace. Grotius defines war as a span of time in which disputed rights and armed conflicts between states are examined in reference to temporal coordinates. This method allows him to adjust otherwise static laws to meet the demands of times and spaces in an increasingly expanded world. In doing so, Grotius is also able to reconcile multiple layers of (...) laws in a temporal framework, which suspends one layer of law, to be revived at later times. Finally, cautious in the use of the language of time, Grotius admits both that right demands immediacy, and that justice suffers delays. By this nexus of delay and emergency, Grotius warns against the abuse of ‘time’ as a legal concept to justify unlawful claims, which still rings with alarm today. (shrink)

In a significant early case, the ICTY commented: “The essence of the whole corpus of international humanitarian law as well as human rights law lies in the protection of the human dignity of every person…. The general principle of respect for human dignity is . . . the very raison d'être of international humanitarian law and human rights law.” Is it true that international humanitarian law and international human rights law share the same “essence,” and that essence is the general (...) principle of respect for human dignity? Is it true that, in the words of Charles Beitz, humanitarian law is “perhaps better described as the law of ‘human rights in armed conflicts’”? To answer yes, I argue, amounts to a reinterpretation of IHL that drifts far from its history. This reinterpretation is what I label human rights thinking . In its origins, IHL was not designed to protect human dignity, but to reduce human suffering; it was a form of disaster relief. Human rights law, by contrast, originated as a blueprint for the kind of peacetime societies that would no longer plunge the world into what the UN Charter calls the “untold sorrow” of war. Nevertheless, law changes. Perhaps the nature of IHL has evolved over time in the direction of human rights thinking, and should evolve that way. That is the view I defend-–with some qualifications-–in the final sections of this essay. First, I explore the very different genealogies of IHL and human rights law, and explain how human rights thinking migrated into IHL. I attribute the migration to international criminal law, military occupations, and reactions to the U.S. war on terrorism. In the final sections, I explore two ways human rights thinking can be pursued in wars. One of them, I will argue, overplays and overestimates what human rights thinking can accomplish. It does so by, in effect, willing away fundamental differences between war and peace. The other is an approach that I have defended for more than three decades. It consists, at bottom, of taking a civilian’s-eye view of the disasters of war and reading the law accordingly-–recognizing, one might say, that Mother Courage and her children matter just as much to the law of war as Henry V and his band of brothers. (shrink)

La Fédération démocratique internationale des femmes (FDIF), créée en 1945 à Paris, a été l’une des plus importantes organisations féminines internationales durant la guerre froide. Tombée dans l’oubli, ignorée par l’histoire des femmes à l’Ouest comme à l’Est, elle fait l’objet de nouvelles recherches depuis une quinzaine d’années, en lien avec le dynamisme des travaux sur l’engagement « féministe » des États communistes. Les raisons idéologiques et intellectuelles de cet oubli ont été analy...

War is Hell is a study of the philosophy of war and peace, ranging critically from ancient peace thinking to today. The author uses a Socratic method, focused on political philosophy rather than on cultural or psychological aspects of war and peace making. The book is not a treatise on ethics, but rather an analysis of some aspects of the nature of war and peace. This book is a study of war – and by extension, peace – from the standpoint (...) of political theory. For all those who think there is too much war, and to deal with that we need to search for new ways of thinking. (shrink)

As new military technologies change the character of war by empowering agents in new ways, it can become more difficult for our ethics of war to achieve the right balance between moral principle and necessity. Indeed, there is an ever-growing literature that seeks to apply, defend and / or update the ethics of war in light of what is often claimed to be an unprecedented period of rapid advancement in military robotics, or warbots. To increase confidence that our approach (...) to this development finds success in appropriately constraining war, this article compares our current discourse to the ethical debate over the rise of air power during the interwar period. As moral norms largely failed to constrain air power in World War II, by highlighting the interrelated processes of technological change, ethical debate, and the eventual reconciliation of war practice and war ethics, this historical case offers insights that can help military ethicists maintain their “critical edge” as remote and autonomous robotic weapons continue to mature and proliferate. (shrink)

This paper defends revisionism against a challenge: that it cannot convincingly hold that many instances of killing in war are morally wrong but should nonetheless remain legally permissible. The paper argues that we should view the relationship between the morality of war and the laws of war as analogous to the relationship between fundamental principles and rules of regulation in debates about theories of justice. This yields a fresh justification for the law’s divergence from morality, which absolves revisionism from the (...) twofold charge of being at once irrelevant and incoherent. It also helps clarify persisting ambiguities concerning the contrast between war and ‘ordinary life,’ the contested notion of a ‘deep morality’ of war, and revisionism’s relationship to ideal and non-ideal theory. (shrink)

This article interrogates the bureaucratization of war, incarnate in the covert lethal drone. Bureaucracies are criticized typically for their complexity, inefficiency, and inflexibility. This article is concerned with their moral indifference. It explores killing, which is so highly administered, so morally remote, and of such scale, that we acknowledge a covert lethal program. This is a bureaucratized program of assassination in contravention of critical human rights. In this article, this program is seen to compromise the advance of global justice. Moreover, (...) the bureaucratization of lethal force is seen to dissolve democratic ideals from within. The bureaucracy isolates the citizens from lethal force applied in their name. People are killed, in the name of the State, but without conspicuous justification, or judicial review, and without informed public debate. This article gives an account of the risk associated with the bureaucratization of the State’s lethal power. Exemplified by the covert drone, this is power with formidable reach. It is power as well, which requires great moral sensitivity. Considering the drone program, this article identifies challenges, which will become more prominent and pressing, as technology advances. (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)

Since the beginning of its history philosophy deals with the question for the meaning of war. This question, however, was always understood as the question for the causes of war: Why is there war? Where does it come from? The article presupposes that only this question and the attempts to respond to it can shed light onto the interpretation of the historical reality of war, which is finally the only reason to reflect on its causation. The article refers to a (...) set of notions and texts, which belong to a discourse on war unfolding through the centuries of European thinking. These notions are: contradictions, body, justice, nature, right, politics, and morals. Even if this sequence is only one possible sequence of the philosophical reflection on warfare, I consider it to be one of greater importance. We see, how a plurality of causes creates a context, in which we could try to analyze actual events: For it is evident that no war has only one reason. And the article has finally one other intention, namely to show that probably every possible sequence of causes of war will have the same consequence. This con-sequence will be the final destruction of the world, the coming of the ash. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Vitoria Las Casas References Further Reading.

When is it right to go to war? When is a war illegal? What are the rules of engagement? What should happen when a war is over? How should we view terrorism? _The Ethics of War and Peace_ is a fresh and contemporary introduction to one of the oldest but still most relevant ethical debates. It introduces students to contemporary Just War Theory in a stimulating and engaging way, perfect for those approaching the topic for the first time. Helen (...) Frowe explains the core issues in Just War Theory, and chapter by chapter examines the recent and ongoing philosophical? debates on: theories of self defence and national defence Jus ad Bellum, Jus in Bello, and Jus post Bellum the moral status of combatants the principle of non-combatant immunity the nature of terrorism and the moral status of terrorists. Each chapter concludes with a useful summary, discussion questions and suggestions for further reading, to aid student learning and revision. _The Ethics of War and Peace_ is the ideal textbook for students studying philosophy, politics and international relations. (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)

The concept of jus post bellum deals with moral considerations in the aftermath of conflict and is concerned with how a just peace should look like. This paper analyses the concept of jus post bellum as developed by contemporary Just War theorists. Its aim is to provide a critical perspective on the proposed substantial scope of this concept. In other words, it will consider the question: in restoring peace after war, is it justified for just combatants to change the political (...) structure of a defeated aggressor? The piece will be divided into two main parts. First, through a review of the literature, I define the current state of the art on jus post bellum thinking in relation to a number of key aspects of this concept. What does241 it entail? Which principles is it made of? What sort of activities do just war theorists speak about when they speak of creating a just peace? Second, I focus on the principle of ?political rehabilitation? of the defeated state: is it permissible? Under what circumstances? While considering these questions and authors' views on this matter, the paper will provide a critical reappraisal of the current debate on the justifiability of political reconstruction in post-conflict states. (shrink)

This book offers a detailed utilitarian analysis of the ethical issues involved in war. Utilitarianism and the Ethics of War addresses the two basic ethical questions posed by war: when, if ever, are we morally justified in waging war, and if recourse to arms is warranted, how are we permitted to fight the wars we wage? In addition, it deals with the challenge that realism and relativism raise for the ethical discussion of war, and with the duties of military personnel (...) and the moral challenges they can face. In tackling these matters, the book covers a wide range of topics—from pacifism to armed humanitarian intervention, from the right of national defense to pre-emptive or preventive war, from civilian immunity to the tenets of just war theory and the moral underpinnings of the rules of war. But, what is distinctive about this book is that it provides a consistent and thorough-going utilitarian or consequentialist treatment of the fundamental normative issues that war occasions. Although it goes against the tide of recent work in the field, a utilitarian approach to the ethics of war illuminates old questions in new ways by showing how a concern for well-being and the consequences of our actions and policies shape the moral constraints to which states and other actors must adhere. This book will be of much interest to students of the ethics of war, just war theory, moral philosophy, war and conflict studies and IR. (shrink)