LECTURE 13 - War Flashcards
Questions regarding war
- Is the war legal?
- What is leader doing to justify the conflict?
- Is conduct of the war bound by any rules?
- Does the ‘West’ and the EU have a right or responsibility to engage directly with the conflict?
4.1 What is being done and why is this pathway being chose?
point of IR
avoid war
just vs unjust wars
- Attempt to ‘outlaw’ war, by law
– Can only take place in exceptional circumstances - Rules for engaging in war
– Must be declared to enemy and neutral parties - United Nations places further restrictions
– Bans use or threat of force
– Can bestow right to use force
– Central concept is collective security - Self-Defence still permitted
origins of ‘war laws’
- Religious texts and doctrines
– Common to much of our moral/ethical thinking - Codes and rules of armed forces
– Can be formal and informal - Listen to rhetoric of US officials: follow US law
- Different approaches to POWs (prisoner of war) in
WWII - Precedent
- Reciprocity
3 central international
legal instruments
- UN Charter
- Geneva Conventions
- Hague Conventions
jus in bellum
right to declare war
The law on the legal path to war
– A Legal Response to Threat of Attack
* Sets out the rational and the
justifications for engaging in war
* Reference can be made to customary law
War must be declared by legitimate
authority
– The international community must be
advised
– Notice of intent must be given to
opponent
* This is hazy…. Creates significant
strategic disadvantages
– Usually declared by national
sovereign/head of state
– Creates a new series of legal
considerations
* Relations with other nations,
especially neutral nations
* Implications under international
treaties
* Serves notices that laws of war are
in effect
- A state must have considerable
justification
– All avenues at diplomatic resolution
should be exhausted - Preventative self-defense attacks
permitted
– There is no need to accept an attack
before action
– Preemptive strikes must be: - Necessary
- Proportional
jus ad bello
right to conduct war (war laws/rules)
- These principles set out the rules of how a
state can engage in war - Considered to be the ‘real laws of war’
The laws of war (Jus in bello) define the conduct
and responsibilities of belligerent nations,
neutral nations and individuals engaged in
warfare, in relation to each other and to
protected persons, usually meaning civilians.
jus in bellum general principles
- Force used to restrain & restrict adversaries, not kill
- Soldiers who surrendered should not be killed.
- Non-combatants (unarmed civilians) should not be targeted
- Indiscriminate (no specific target) force & weaponry
prohibited - Unnecessary suffering prohibited.
- Proportionality
examples of legal instruments governing war
- Declaration of Paris (1856) –
Maritime war/piracy ban - Succession of Hague Conventions
from 1900s – foundational
conventions on how to go about war - Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) –
renounces war as policy instrument,
set basis for crimes against peace - Geneva Conventions (1928, 1949,
1975) – ban on chemical/biologic
war, POW treatment, civilian
protection
drawbacks of ‘war rules’
- Legal frameworks implicitly condone
war - How do you operationalize
‘proportionality’? - Problems of trust with weapons
limitations
– Think of Non-Proliferation Treaty
application - Technology outpacing the current
rules/norms
– Drones, remote strikes, cyber - Other state actors not always the threat
– Non-state actors, terrorism, civil war
why were the rules of war updated (ie. in 1949)?
- Costs of war for many actors has gone up
– Outcome of complex interdependence
– Globalization - Rise of regionalism to defuse conflict
– i.e., genesis of the EU, Mercosul - Rise of security communities (stretching
the course)
