This book (1) explains how just war theory variously presupposes ethical theories and, particularly, natural law; (2) shows how issues in just war theory might be resolved differently depending on which ethical theory is being appealed to in their proposed resolution; and (3) resolves conflicts among these resolutions.

Some contemporary Just War theorists, like Jeff McMahan, have recently built upon an individual right of self-defense to articulate moral rules of war that are at odds with commonly accepted views. For instance, they argue that in principle combatants who fight on the unjust side ought to be liable to punishment on that basis alone. Also, they reject the conclusion that combatants fighting on both sides are morally equal. In this paper, I argue that these theorists overextend their self-defense analysis (...) when it comes to the punishment of unjust combatants, and I show how in an important sense just and unjust combatants are morally equal. I contend that the individualistic and quid pro quo perspective of the self-defense analysis fails to consider properly how the international community, morally speaking, ought to treat combatants, and I set forth four elements of justice applicable to war, which, together, support the conclusion that in principle the international community should not take on the activity of punishing combatants solely for fighting on the unjust side. (shrink)

This Article aims to extend contractarianism in just war theory to the case of asymmetric war of independence. Its main thesis is that within asymmetric wars, the traditional rule of noncombatant immunity has no contractarian justification: It systematically discriminates against the weak part to the conflict, and thus it is unfair. On the other hand, a rule that allows those who take themselves to be freedom fighters to threaten civic life, yet prohibits deliberately targeting individuals, is fair and mutually beneficial. (...) The branch of the war convention I called “justice in asymmetric war” instructs militants to treat civilians as if they bear no personal responsibility for the evil that their society causes. (shrink)

Sadly, there are few restraints on the endings of wars. There has never been an international treaty to regulate war's final phase, and there are sharp disagreements regarding the nature of a just peace treaty. There are, by contrast, restraints aplenty on starting wars, and on conduct during war. These restraints include: political pressure from allies and enemies; the logistics of raising and deploying force; the United Nations, its Charter and Security Council; and international laws like the Hague and Geneva (...) Conventions. Indeed, in just war theory—which frames moral principles to regulate wartime actions—there is a robust set of rules for resorting to war (jus ad bellum) and for conduct during war (jus in bello) but not for the termination phase of war. (shrink)

Despite its commonality rape in war has long been an invisible war crime. Gender-based violence has escaped sanction because it has been shielded into the private sphere. Although rape in war is a form of public violence committed by soldiers representing a state it continues to be conceived as a private crime, committed by individual men. If women's human rights are to be respected in war and in peace the imaginary border between the public and the private has to be (...) abandoned. In this article rape in war is studied as a case of injustice for women in violent conflict. Arguments against feminist versions of ethics of care are formulated as these theories fail to challenge the public/ private distinction due to deep and constitutive gender norms. As an alternative, a narrative, feminist ethic of justice is presented based on women's narratives of experienced injustice in war. The theoretical model is developed through the integration of values derived from the ethics of care and thereby dismisses the distinction between public and private and between reason and emotion. The conclusion is that both substance and form of human rights must be based in concrete, situated gendered people's experiences of getting their human rights violated. (shrink)

WE SCHOLARS WHO WRITE ABOUT THE Republic have found much to say about the education of Plato’s warriors. We carefully and thoughtfully relate their virtues to those of the Republic ’s philosopher-kings, and even to those of Plato’s Socrates. We have found much less to say about Plato’s peculiar account of that for which they are educated— war. I agree with Leon Craig that war and spiritedness are central to the argument of the Republic. Indeed, I will contend, Socrates’ three (...) different accounts of war reflect and, in a way, complete the central argument of the Republic. Yet Craig and other modern scholars of the cultivation of Plato’s warriors have very little to say on Socrates’ three accounts of the city at war. (shrink)

To frame the topic of conflicts, particularly through the historical lens of nation-states, it is essential to consider the historical context of key state formations in the West. From the nineteenth century onward, these formations maintained the power and sovereignty that underpinned Western dominance. Although the traditional Westphalian concept, derived from the Peace of Westphalia (1648), established the notion of nation-states as the primary actors in international law—each with supreme authority over its territory— sovereignty has often been separated from physical (...) territory in practice. Power and authority frequently extend beyond, or fall short of, a state’s geographic boundaries, indicating that sovereignty has increasingly been decoupled from territoriality. In colonial contexts, multiple legal systems and authorities coexisted and often conflicted, creating a fluid and contested landscape of governance. This allowed colonial powers to maneuver between different legal frameworks to maintain control. In these colonies, the suspension of normal legal rules—what is often referred to as a “state of exception”—was more commonly the rule rather than the exception.1. (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)

Though scholars of political science and moral philosophy have long analyzed the justifications for and against waging war as well as the ethics of warfare itself, the problem of _ending_ wars has received less attention. In the first book to apply just war theory to this phase of conflict, Eric Patterson presents a three-part view of justice in end-of-war settings involving order, justice, and reconciliation. Patterson’s case studies range from successful applications of _jus post bellum,_ such as the (...) U.S. Civil War or Kosovo, to challenges such as present-day Iraq. (shrink)

One way to tell the story of contemporary ethics of war is as a gradual expansion of the period of time to which theorists attend in relation to war, from ad bellum and in bello to post bellum and ex bello. Ned Dobos, in his new book, Ethics, Security, and the War-Machine, invites us to expand this attention further to the period between wars, which he calls jus ante bellum. In this essay, I explore two significant implications of this shift (...) in normative focus. First, I argue that it opens up an important and productive field of the ethics of military policy-making outside of conflict, including procurement, training, force posture, and military diplomacy. Second, I argue that attending to the relationship between ante bellum and ad bellum considerations contains the seeds of a powerful pacifist argument. (shrink)

The Moral Target: Aiming at Right Conduct in War and Other Conflicts comprises essays that discuss aspects of war and other conflicts in the light of nonconsequentialist ethical theory. Topics include the relation between conditions that justify starting war and those that justify stopping it, the treatment of combatants and noncombatants in war, collaboration, justice after war and other conflicts, terrorism, resistance to communal injustice, and nuclear deterrence.

A team of distinguished Japanese scholars make a critique of Hugo Grotius' De jure belli ac pacis and re-examine the historiography of international law with its anachronistic Eurocentric bias.

:In his famous book Just and Unjust Wars, Michael Walzer articulates a thesis he calls the “Moral Equality of Soldiers,” namely, the principle that combatants have an equal right to kill other combatants in war, regardless of the justice of the cause for which they are fighting. The Moral Equality Thesis, as I shall call it, is an essential component of traditional Just War Theory, in that it provides the basis for distinguishing the jus in bello from the jus (...) ad bellum. It also plays a crucial role in identifying the nature of the difference between combatants and civilians. The Moral Equality Thesis has recently come under attack by scholars of Just War Theory, notably philosopher Jeff McMahan, on the grounds that killing for immoral purposes cannot be justified, and so it cannot be true that combatants all have an equal right to kill, regardless of the justice of their cause. In this essay, I defend the Moral Equality Thesis in its traditional formulation. Without it, I argue, the rule of law would not apply in war. The failure to recognize the equal right of combatants to kill in war, I suggest, creates an inconsistency between the rules of war and basic concepts in the law and morality of self-defense, an inconsistency that McMahan himself would think undesirable. I argue that McMahan’s argument applies more compellingly to armed conflict in asymmetrical warfare. Arguably, the Moral Equality Thesis does not apply in an armed conflict between combatants and unlawful combatants. In that context, the divergence from the law and morality of self-defense is less of a concern. View HTML Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.KILLING IN WAR AND THE MORAL EQUALITY THESISVolume 32, Issue 2Claire Finkelstein DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052516000169Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. KILLING IN WAR AND THE MORAL EQUALITY THESISVolume 32, Issue 2Claire Finkelstein DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052516000169Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. KILLING IN WAR AND THE MORAL EQUALITY THESISVolume 32, Issue 2Claire Finkelstein DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052516000169Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

This article discusses the question of the possibility of moral and ethical grounds for the justification of the use of violence in modern times international conflicts. And specifically, how does the tradition of just war fit into this discussion? For this, a closer look at what just war thinking means is necessary. In this respect we would describe just war thinking more as a just war tradition than a just war theory, as there is no encompassing theory on just war. (...) In history you see a development from the justification of war to a more problematic relation to the possibility of the use of military force. This can be illustrated by the more recent shift from just war thinking towards just peace thinking. This leads to the question: what kind of peace? We argue in this article that peace and justice are connected, and that you cannot have true peace without true justice. (shrink)

ExcerptThe new world “order” is a complicated, emerging political “disorder” with remote historical roots in Cartesian and Enlightenment sophistry and secularized Protestant theology, not in philosophy.1 Because the “new world order” is complicated, understanding justice in the new world order is also complicated. Proximately, the new world order began as the brainchild of some well-meaning Western intellectuals just after the end of World War II, as a means to heal what at least one leading Catholic philosopher of the time, (...) Jacques Maritain, described to be a “world broken by postwar distress and the weight of rival economic, political, and ideological…. (shrink)

This paper foregrounds how women’s public testimony as part of a formal transitional justice initiative is shaped by the particular context in which a commission operate, including the political and security environment. While the literature has engaged with the gendered predicaments of truth commissions after peace agreements and during transitions away from non-democratic rule, the function of such initiatives in more authoritarian and in immediate post-war contexts is generally overlooked. I examine women’s testimonies from Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learned and (...) Reconciliation Commission, and contend that pervasive militarization and insecurity, and the conduct of the Commission, influenced the stories that came forth. Women’s testimonies in the war-torn areas primarily represent pleas for information about missing family members and reflect important silences about the women’s own experiences of abuse, including ongoing post-war insecurities. The analysis raises questions about what may be expected from transitional justice efforts in difficult post-war contexts. (shrink)

What mechanisms led to the intractable legal situation of “enemy combatants” detained by the U.S. government in Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere? And what does the role of the judiciary in the enemy combatants cases suggest about politically contentious court cases in general? This article develops a two-stage theory of political justice that is based on the U.S. post-9/11 terrorism cases. It demonstrates mechanisms by which politically contentious cases turn into political justice. Political justice in these cases is (...) mainly the result of violations of the separation of powers that are legitimized by portraying the defendants/detainees as enemies beyond the law. (shrink)

There has been a recent revival of interest in the medieval just war theory. But what is the virtue of justice needed to make war just? War is a complex and protracted activity. It is argued that a variety of virtues of justice, as well as a variety of virtues are required to guide the application of the use of force. Although it is mistaken to regard war as punishment, punitive justice—bringing to account those guilty of initiating (...) an unjust war or of war crimes in its conduct— has an important role to play after conflict to restore the wrongs of war and help establish a just peace. Justice as fairness is needed to guide the distribution of resources and so reduce the grounds for war. Protective justice—protecting a community or innocents from harmful attack—helps define what constitutes a just cause for war and so constrains the occasions for war. The just principles set out the criteria to be met if war is to be morally permissible. In practice, this challenging demand requires that political leaders and military at all levels learn and exercise the virtues, particularly the cardinal virtues of justice, courage, self-control and practical wisdom. If we are to make war just and to make only just war, we need justice understood in its broadest sense. Such justice, as Aristotle noted, “is not a part but the whole of virtue.”. (shrink)

War is harmful to animals, but few have considered how such harm should affect assessments of the justice of military actions. In this article, we propose a way in which concern for animals can be included within the just-war framework, with a focus on necessity and proportionality. We argue that counting animals in war will not make just-war theory excessively demanding, but it will make just-war theory more humane. By showing how animals can be included in our proportionality and (...) necessity assessments, we provide a crucial first step towards developing an animal-inclusive account of just-war theory. (shrink)

This article suggests that the best available normative framework for guiding conduct in war rests on categories that do not echo the terms of an individual rights-based morality, but acknowledge the impossibility of rendering warfare fully morally justified. Avoiding the undue moralization of conduct in war is an imperative for a normative framework that strives to actually give behavioral guidance to combatants, most of whom will inevitably be ignorant of the moral status of the individuals they encounter on the battlefield (...) and will often be uncertain or mistaken about the justice of their own cause. We identify the requirement of military necessity, applied on the basis of what we refer to as the “St. Petersburg assumption”, as the main principle according to which a combatant should act, regardless of which side or in which battlefield encounter she finds herself. This pragmatic normative framework enjoys moral traction for three reasons: first, in the circumstances of war it protects human life to a certain extent; second, it makes no false claims about the moral justification of individual conduct in combat operations; and, third, it fulfills morally important functions of law. However, the criterion of military necessity interpreted on the basis of the St. Petersburg assumption does not directly replicate fundamental moral prescriptions about the preservation of individual rights. (shrink)

This book analyses the problems of current just war theory, and offers a more stable justificatory framework for non-intervention in international relations. The primary purpose of just war theory is to provide a language and a framework by which decision makers and citizens can organize and articulate arguments about the justice of particular wars. Given that the majority of conflicts that threaten human security are now intra-state conflicts, just war theory is often called on to make judgments about wars (...) of intervention. This book aims to critically examine the tenets of just war theory in light of these changes, and formulate a new theory of intervention and just cause. For Michael Walzer, the leading scholar of just war theory, armed humanitarian intervention is permissible only in cases of genocide, ethnic cleansing, widespread massacres, or enslavement. This book shows why this threshold is too restrictive in light of the progressive shift away from interstate conflict as well as the emerging norms of 'sovereignty as responsibility' and the 'responsibility to protect'. _Justice, Intervention and Force in International Relations_ aims to establish a new, stable foundation for non-intervention and a revised threshold for 'just cause'. In addition, this book demonstrates that over-reliance on the just cause category distorts understanding, analysis, and public discussion of the justice or injustice of resorting to war. This new book will be of much interest to students of ethics, security studies, international relations and international law. Kimberley Hudson is Assistant Professor of Political Science at American International College, and has a Phd in International Relations from Brown University. (shrink)

This paper examines the UN provisions concerning the legitimate use of force, which justified the 1991 Gulf War, and Michael Walzer's arguments, which can be read as a justification of the UN provisions. After a brief historical sketch of the approach to internationalism of Marx, Lenin, and the early Bolshevik regime, alternative internationalist criteria of Jus ad Bellum are proposed, which assume certain forms of common oppression among peoples of different states. If certain forms of common oppression can be defended (...) (in the case of Marxist theory, exploitation and imperialism), and if one shares Walzer's concern for individual rights, then the internationalist criteria for Jus ad Bellum are morally superior to the UN's and Walzer's. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION In any society relatively few disputes are brought to judges for resolution. Most are handled informally or forgotten. Fewer still are cases that go to trial. Most are settled. Compromises are reached even in cases where issues are hotly contested and where millions or billions of dollars in damages are claimed. Recently, for example, one of the most controversial lawsuits of our time, the Agent Orange case, was settled. In that case, veterans of the Vietnam War, their spouses, and (...) their children alleged that a defoliant — Agent Orange – used in Southeast Asia contained dioxin and was responsible for deaths, debilities, miscarriages, and birth defects suffered by members of the plaintiff class. Class members argued that the manufacturers of the defoliant, seven major chemical companies, knew that it was tainted and should be made to compensate them for their injuries, claiming billions of dollars in damages. The case received national exposure and became a rallying point for veterans, a means they hoped to use to publicize their plight and to spur Congress to come to their aid. On the eve of trial, the case was settled. The defendants, who denied liability throughout the pretrial period, agreed to pay the veterans $180 million. In turn, the plaintiff class agreed to drop the suit. Thus ended a controversy which not only presented novel legal issues and tested the ability of the federal courts to handle complex lawsuits, but concerned the well-being of a large number of veterans, their spouses, and their handicapped children as well. (shrink)

Can war ever be just? By what right do we charge people with war crimes? Can war itself be a crime? What is a good peace treaty? Since the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, many wars have erupted, inflaming such areas as the Persian Gulf, Central Africa and Central Europe. Brutalities committed during these conflicts have sparked new interest in the ethics of war and peace. Brian Orend explores the ethics of war and peace from a Kantian perspective, (...) emphasizing human rights protection, the rule of international law and a fully global concept of justice. Contending that Kant’s just war doctrine has not been given its due, Orend displays Kant’s theory to its fullest, impressive effect. He then completely and clearly updates Kant’s perspective for application to our time. Along the way, he criticizes pacifism and realism, explores the nature of human rights protection during wartime, and defends a theory of just war. He also looks ahead to future developments in global institutional reform using cases from the Persian Gulf War, Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda to illustrate his argument. Controversial and timely, perhaps the most important contribution War and International Justice: A Kantian Perspective makes is with regard to the question of justice after war. Orend offers a principled theory of war termination, making an urgent plea to reform current international law. (shrink)

War can be defined as organized political violence among two or more nations. In accordance with the purpose, processes and results of war, the ethics of war generally comprises three aspects: right ethics, action ethics and duty ethics. The most important issue in ethics of war is “justice”. “Justice” and “injustice” as a conceptual pair do not prescribe the objective character of war but rather convey a subjective attitude and ethical position that have the potential to compel a (...) populace to either support or oppose a war. (shrink)

Mirrors of Justice is a groundbreaking study of the meanings of and possibilities for justice in the contemporary world. The book brings together a group of both prominent and emerging scholars to reconsider the relationships between justice, international law, culture, power, and history through case studies of a wide range of justice processes. The book's eighteen authors examine the ambiguities of justice in Europe, Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Melanesia through critical empirical (...) and historical chapters. The introduction makes an important contribution to our understanding of the multiplicity of justice in the twenty-first century by providing an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that synthesizes the book's chapters with leading-edge literatures on human rights, legal pluralism, and international law. (shrink)

Dr. Myers challenges the legitimacy of the traditional concept of the "just war," revived during the Vietnam War and with the publication of Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars in 1977.

This essay relates Plato’s views on Homeric justice in the Apology and Crito to current domestic and foreign policy. Applying the insights of these dialogues to contemporary issues of war and civil liberties, the essay contends that the separation of time and the foreignness of culture may aid our decisionmaking if we take the time to consider the lessons offered to us across the centuries. Plato assists in this bridging process through the literary device of the dialogue. The dialogues (...) provide the opportunity to involve the reader personally in the ongoing struggle to come to grips with what is central to human life. The last section of this essay will link the relevance of ancient thought to contemporary issues such as Abu Ghraib tortures and Guantanamo detentions in the light of the earlier sections’ consideration of the Apology and the Crito. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Toleration and Justice in the Laozi:Engaging with Tao Jiang's Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early ChinaAi Yuan (bio)IntroductionThis review article engages with Tao Jiang's ground-breaking monograph on the Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early China with particular focus on the articulation of toleration and justice in the Laozi (otherwise called the Daodejing).1 Jiang discusses a naturalistic turn and the re-alignment of values in the Laozi, resulting in (...) a naturalization of justice (impartiality) by rejecting artificial humaneness and rigid hierarchical moral-political structures. In this Laozian just world, there is no room for human intervention and rigid top-down enforcement of values, thus leaving justice to naturalized Heaven or Dao as the ultimate source of the cosmos.Based on Jiang's interpretative context, I show that there is a twofold justification for the "paradoxical" and "elusive"2 value of political toleration.3 A negative expression of toleration focuses on non-interference with choices, and non-enforcement of values toward those whom one reasonably disagrees with and regards as morally wrong. Such an attitude of toleration results in practical advantages such as avoiding entrenchment in bloodshed, abandonment, and deprivation.A positive expression of toleration operating in the Laozian ideal world requires equal protection of people as capable knowers, including those to whom we object. Such protection includes their ways of expression and an unbiased recognition of them as equally capable knowers so that they are heard without bias and prejudice. Such a kind of toleration is revealed as a constituent component of justice since it enables equal contribution toward the shaping of society without discrimination. In other words, toleration is seen as naturalized justice in a Laozian world within which no one is "being wronged with the capacity as a knower"—a kind of epistemic justice articulated by Miranda Fricker (Fricker 2007).4 [End Page 466]This article discusses how Jiang's political reconstruction of Laozian philosophy contains the seeds for a discussion of toleration, a value associated with distributive justice and against epistemic injustice. First, it introduces Jiang's arguments on a naturalization of justice and impartiality as Heavenly attributes in the Laozi. Second, it articulates the value of tolerance in the Laozi. Finally, I compare Laozian toleration with Confucian toleration using youwei- wuwei metaethical criticism.Moral-Political Philosophy in the LaoziJiang's interpretative framework about the origins of distributive justice in the Laozi starts with a discussion of the cosmogonic-mystical worldviews that signal "a new understanding of the nature of the cosmos, as well as a broad reorientation in the Heaven-human relationship in the mid-Warring States period" (p. 192). Differing from the interests in the origins of human culture or civilization in the Ru and Mo traditions, Jiang agrees with Franklin Perkins and identifies a "cosmogonic turn" in the late fourth century b.c. that reveals a demotion of anthropomorphic Heaven. By paring Heaven with earth and accordingly decentering human beings in the intellectual discourse, the Laozi directs equal values to the ten thousand things, with humans as just one among them (Perkins 2016, quoted in Jiang 2021, p. 196).5 Laozi's philosophy thus stands out by rejecting Heaven as caring for human affairs while taking Dao as the ultimate origin of the cosmos, as claimed in chapter 5 of the received text: "Heaven and earth are not humane; they treat ten-thousand things in the world as straw dogs; the sage is not humane; he treats people as straw dogs" (p. 199).With Jiang's reading of a naturalistic heaven, we see a re-alignment between cosmos and the human since sage-rulers follow the Heaven-Dao. The Laozian Dao is "self-so-ing" (ziran 自然), "accommodating" (rong 容), and "impartial" (gong 公), and thus marks a sharp contrast to Confucian familial bias resulting in "actively intervening in human affairs on behalf of the (certain) humans by appointing them to carry out its mission" (p. 200). With the sage emulating the ultimate Dao, the Laozi replaces the Confucian anthropocentric Heaven, which focuses on partiality (qin 親) and humaneness (ren 仁).This Laozian understanding of the cosmos also grounds its philosophical departure from Mohism despite both having a political... (shrink)

This article discusses the well-known verdict of Vattel's legal positivism in relation to concepts of modernity and the European State System and aims at a re-interpretation of Vattel's understanding of the modern state, just war and the international order. It wants to show that even though States and individuals do not obey the same logic and reason, Vattel was neiter a Hobbesian thinker nor, as Kant claimed, a 'sorry comforter'. The main reason for this is that Vattel's doctrine of the (...) war en forme does not imply a break with the tradition of just war. Instead, it should be read as a reformulation of the inegalitarian notion of the enemy as proposed by just war doctrines. Pointing out to the persistance of a jusnaturalistic framework, the article shows that Vattel's concept of justus hostis is built on the same conceptual framework as the concept of the enemy of the human race. (shrink)

In this book, the late Prof. Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov argues that the failure of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process so far has been mainly the result of the inability of both sides to reach an agreed formula for linking justice to peace. The issues of justice and injustice are focused mainly on the outcomes of the 1947-1949 first Arab-Israeli War and specifically in the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem. The conflicting historical narratives of the two sides regarding the question (...) of responsibility for the injustice done to the Palestinians turn the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a classic case of linking the issues of justice and peace. Given that the two sides often define the conflict in terms of injustice and unfairness, these issues have particular relevance for the peace process, and this is what makes dealing with them as barriers to the resolution of the conflict so problematic. Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov argues that the link between justice and peace is an important issue requiring both sides' attention, but, given the wide and currently unbridgeable gap separating the two sides, it should be postponed to the phase of reconciliation rather than being included in the process of conflict resolution. The two-state solution is endorsed as the best and practical solution and as a first step for a "just peace" in this conflict, to be followed by reconciliation. Highly topical, this book is essential reading for scholars and researchers of International Relations, Peace Studies and the Arab-Israeli conflict. (shrink)

Historically, laws and policies to criminalize drug use or possession were rooted in explicit racism, and they continue to wreak havoc on certain racialized communities. We are a group of bioethicists, drug experts, legal scholars, criminal justice researchers, sociologists, psychologists, and other allied professionals who have come together in support of a policy proposal that is evidence-based and ethically recommended. We call for the immediate decriminalization of all so-called recreational drugs and, ultimately, for their timely and appropriate legal regulation. (...) We also call for criminal convictions for nonviolent offenses pertaining to the use or possession of small quantities of such drugs to be expunged, and for those currently serving time for these offenses to be released. In effect, we call for an end to the “war on drugs.”. (shrink)

Pursuing Justice, Second Edition, examines the issue of justice by considering the origins of the idea, formal systems of justice, current global issues of justice, and ways in which justice might be achieved by individuals, organizations, and the global community. Part 1 demonstrates how the idea of justice has emerged over time, starting with religion and philosophy, then moving to the justice as a concern of the state, and finally to the concept of (...) social justice. Part 2 outlines the very different mechanisms used by various nations for achieving state justice, including systems based on common law, civil law, and Islamic law, with a separate discussion of the US justice system. Part 3 focuses on four contemporary issues of justice: war, genocide, slavery, and the environment. Finally, Part 4 shows how individuals and organizations can go about pursuing justice, and describes the rise of global justice. This updated timely book helps students understand the complexities and nuances of a society's pursuit of justice. It provides students with the foundations of global justice systems, integrating Greek philosophies and major religious perspectives into a justice perspective, and contributes to undergraduate understanding of international justice bodies, NGOs, and institutions. New edition is completely updated and revised to achieve relevance for today's students Covers concepts of justice as well as ideas for pursuing and achieving justice Examines how our modern laws began, and traces their evolution to today's laws Presents concepts and issues in justice studies as well as a comparison of several systems of law Teaching resources include discussion questions and real-world examples. (shrink)

Peace is a universal ideal, but its political life is a great paradox: "peace" is the opposite of war, but it also enables war. If peace is the elimination of war, then what does it mean to wage war for the sake of peace? What does peace mean when some say that they are committed to it but that their enemies do not value it? Why is it that associating peace with other ideals, like justice, friendship, security, and law, (...) does little to distance peace from war? Although political theory has dealt extensively with most major concepts that today define "the political" it has paid relatively scant critical attention to peace, the very concept that is often said to be the major aim and ideal of humanity. In War for Peace, Murad Idris looks at the ways that peace has been treated across the writings of ten thinkers from ancient and modern political thought, from Plato to Immanuel Kant and Sayyid Qutb, to produce an original and striking account of what peace means and how it works. Idris argues that peace is parasitical in that the addition of other ideals into peace, such as law, security, and friendship, reduces it to consensus and actually facilitates war; it is provincial in that its universalized content reflects particularistic desires and fears, constructions of difference, and hierarchies within humanity; and it is polemical, in that its idealization is not only the product of antagonisms, but also enables hostility. War for Peace uncovers the basis of peace's moralities and the political functions of its idealizations, historically and into the present. This bold and ambitious book confronts readers with the impurity of peace as an ideal, and the pressing need to think beyond universal peace. (shrink)

Traditionally, in deciding whether some strategy or action in war is proportionate and necessary and thus permissible both international law and just war theory focus exclusively on civilian deaths and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. I argue in this paper that any argument that can explain why we should care about collateral killing and damage to infrastructure can also explain why collateral displacement matters. I argue that displacement is a foreseeable near-proximate cause of lethal harm to civilians and is relevant (...) for proportionality and necessity calculi. Accepting my argument has significant consequences for what we are permitted to do in war and for what obligations we have towards refugees that result from our actions in war. (shrink)

Justiça, lei e poder são três conceitos que se interligam na História da Guerra do Peloponeso, de Tucídides. Este artigo desenvolve-se em torno do confronto que se pode estabelecer entre as noções de nomos (lei) e physis (natureza), tanto em Tucídides, como nos sofistas, nos pré-socráticos, em Platão e Aristóteles.

This article presents a new understanding of the problem of cosmopolitan motivation in war, comparing it to the motivational critique of social justice cosmopolitanism. The problem of cosmopolitanism’s “motivational gap” is best interpreted as a political one, not a meta-ethical or ethical one. That is, the salient issue is not whether an individual soldier is able to be motivated by cosmopolitan concerns, nor is it whether being motivated by cosmopolitanism would be too demanding. Rather, given considerations of legitimacy in (...) the use of political power, a democratic army has to be able to motivate its soldiers to take on the necessary risks without relying on coercion alone. Patriotic identification offers a way to achieve this in wars of national defense, but less so in armed humanitarian interventions (AHIs). Two potential implications are that either AHIs should be privatized or that national armies should be transformed to become more cosmopolitan. (shrink)

Feminist transitional justice has greatly contributed to the study of justice in the ruins of war, notably around prosecuting wartime rape. At the same time, scholars have observed limitations to this research agenda such as externally-driven definitions gendered harms and how to address them. This paper explores two novel areas for feminist TJ research: ‘everyday gendered harms’ and customary justice. Based on a three month field study of baraza, a customary justice mechanism in parts of South (...) Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, I explore three cases of ‘everyday’ harms against women: domestic violence, polygynous relationships and witchcraft. Through a substantive examination of these baraza cases, I highlight how studying the contextualised functioning of customary justice mechanisms provides new insights into different areas of feminist TJ scholarship, including women’s participation in the transition, justice for harms against women, and advancing gender equality. Additionally, this paper adds to the broader TJ literature by engaging with local TJ needs as they pertain to people’s everyday life in transition. (shrink)

Twenty years since the onset of the traumatic wars of Yugoslav secession, the countries of the Western Balkans continue to nurture narratives of the past that are mutually exclusive, contradictory, and irreconcilable. The troubling ways in which states in the region remember their pasts provide continuing obstacles in the search for acknowledgment and justice. In this essay, I develop an argument for understanding the relationship between justice and remembrance of the past. To illustrate this relationship, I explore ways (...) in which education and memorialization projects contribute to justice efforts. I critically analyze a few ongoing education and memory projects in the region, and then present alternative ideas on mechanisms of public memory that would be more conducive to building the foundational blocks of justice based on trust, respect, and dignity. (shrink)

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)

This chapter investigates medieval Sweden and its iconography of justice. The Swedish lay judges were without university education, and especially the commoners had few opportunities of seeing images of justice on artefacts or in secular buildings. Yet, the ecclesiastical imagery in churches was seen and understood by all, thanks to the Church’s teaching. Based on surveys of justice-related iconography in medieval Swedish and Finnish churches, the chapter argues that the scope of these motifs was very limited. Images (...) of the Last Judgment and Saint Michael weighing souls predominate, while some churches had murals with Moses receiving the Tables of the Law, Solomon’s justice, or truth- or justice-related Biblical verses in Latin. No images of Lady Justice or other justice-related representations came up. Even only a fraction of the Finnish churches had a Last Judgment or Saint Michael to adorn them. However, these two images together, with images of devils tempting people to sin and perdition, were visualisations that had practical meaning in the Swedish legal culture. The practices of justice and judging were popular and daily reiterated, making each sworn oath a step towards either heaven or hell. (shrink)

Jeff McMahan, one of the leading contemporary writers on ‘just war thinking’, argues in the book under review, Killing in War, that one of the central tenets of the ‘ius in bello’, namely the moral equality of combatants, is both conceptually and morally untenable. This results from a reflection upon and a departure from two basic assumptions in Walzer’s work, namely the idea that war itself isn’t a relation between persons, but between political entities and their human instruments and the (...) idea that the ‘ius ad bellum’ and ‘ius in bello’ are and should be kept distinct. This book merits serious reflection. However, the disadvantages of McMahan’s position are obvious. If the rights of combatants during war depend on the justice of their cause, the immunity of the civilians on the side of the supposed ‘unjust’ enemy is seriously endangered. (shrink)

_Justice and the Just War Tradition_ articulates a distinctive understanding of the reasons that can justify war, of the reasons that cannot justify war, and of the role that those reasons should play in the motivational and attitudinal lives of the citizens, soldiers, and statesmen who participate in war. Eberle does so by relying on a robust conception of human worth, rights, and justice. He locates this theoretical account squarely in the Just War Tradition. But his account is not (...) merely theoretical: _Justice and the Just War Tradition_ has a variety of practical aims, one of the most important of which is to serve as an aid to moral formation. The hope is that citizens, soldiers, and statesmen whose emotions and aspirations have been shaped by the Just War Tradition will be able to negotiate violent communal conflict in ways that respect the demands of justice. So _Justice and the Just War Tradition_ articulates a theoretically satisfying and practically engaging account of the reasons that count in favor of war. Moreover, Eberle develops that account by engaging contemporary theorists, both philosophical and theological, by according due deference to venerable contributors to the Just War Tradition, and by integrating insights from military memoire, the history of war, and the author's experience of teaching ethics at the United States Naval Academy. (shrink)