Kant's Just War Theory

This chapter examines the case for regarding Perpetual Peac. and the Metaphysics of Moral. as entirely at odds in their treatment of just war theory. In Perpetual Peac. Kant can be regarded as being generally hostile to any just war doctrine, whereas in the Metaphysics of Moral. he can be interpreted as being a good deal more supportive. It asks if it is possible to portray the polemic against Kant's forerunners in international law as 'miserable' or 'sorry' comforters in Perpetual Peac. as out of character with Kant's wider reception of the tradition. From this perspective is it possible to present the Metaphysics of Moral. as displaying a more constructive reception of the tradition? If the line of argument followed by Sharon Byrd, Joachim Hruschka, Brian Orend and Susan Shell is correct then something like this must be possible. Because Kant is neither a realist who holds that world politics is above morality and law, nor a pacificist who holds that war in general is morally unjustifiable, Orend concludes he 'must be a just war theorist.'1 If we are to accept Kant as a thinker who integrates just war thinking positively into his philosophy, the remarks he makes about Grotius, Pufendorf and Vattel in Perpetual Peac. have to be interpreted as untypical, and the positive remarks he makes about the right to go to war in the Metaphysics of Moral. have to be interpreted as deriving from his systematic philosophy of international right.

This chapter focuses on the conflicting views of justice in war, traced through the seventeenth century to the last century, and is an introduction to the modern debate on justice in war in historical context. Grotius, unsurprisingly, took a position in between these two, and suggested an entirely new legal approach. It allowed Grotius to put forward a theory which claimed that states had tacitly agreed that, irrespective of the objective justice of their claims, their representatives in battle (commanders and soldiers) could be recognized as having mutual and legitimate rights against each other in war. The final section of this chapter outlines the three traditional conceptions of justice, and demonstrates how the debate set out between the positions of Rousseau, Hobbes and Grotius continued through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The three traditional conceptions of justice includes the martial conception of justice, the grotian conception of justice and the Republican Conception of Political Justice.

Group Rights and the Muslim Diaspora 1 William Barbieri (bio) I. Introduction The fifty years following the promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have witnessed a signal achievement: the establishment of a moral lingua franca for global politics. In statements by visiting heads of state, in the efforts of international organizations, in the pleas of grassroots associations and nongovernmental organizations, in the declarations of religious bodies, and in the accusations of rebel movements alike, talk of justice—and, more immediately, injustice—is conducted in the parlance of human rights. Even the cynical and blatantly manipulative invocations of human rights issued by oppressors and tyrants provide a sort of backhanded testimony to the moral force of the idea. As Michael Walzer remarked in connection with the ethics of war, “Wherever we find hypocrisy, we also find moral knowledge.” 2 It is part and parcel of their promotion to present human rights as fixed and obvious verities of human experience. This image masks, however, deep ambiguities, if not paradoxes, in the nature of human rights. Thus, the normative authority of human rights claims stands against a widely shared confusion regarding the relationship between the moral and legal dimensions [End Page 907] of human rights. Thus, a remarkable measure of practical agreement on international human rights standards stands against widespread disagreement on their theoretical underpinnings. Thus, the historicity characterizing the emergence of human rights norms stands against the timelessness they claim for themselves. Thus, the universality suggested by the very notion of human rights stands against the impact of the particularity of each context in which they are invoked. One should think of these antinomies as constituting a framework of creative tensions within which human rights are dialectically articulated and promoted. Human rights discourse, in this view, is best understood as the practice of collectively interpreting the implications and requirements of the idea of human rights, always in light of the experience garnered in attempts to realize human rights in practice. One of many theaters in the ongoing project of interpreting human rights is Islamic Western Europe. This is the Europe marked by the promi-nent mosque on the banks of the Alster in Hamburg, by the students wearing head scarves in state-run lycées in Paris, and by the public calls to prayer in Birmingham. It is a Europe that has emerged from the aftermath of colonial-ism and the wake of the worker recruitment programs of the fifties and sixties that constitutes a forum for the politics of identity, difference, and recognition. 3 At the heart of this Europe, sharpened by the conjuncture of divergent world-views, lies a set of questions bearing on fundamental notions of human rights. What consequences does this new social constellation bring for our understanding of the tension between the individual rights of liberal tradition and the group rights championed by the multiculturalists? What, in this context, is the meaning of equality? Also, what are the implications of Islamic Europe with regard to how we should think about religious freedom? In taking up this rather daunting cavalcade of questions, the intent of this article is, in the first place, simply to shed some light on their ethical complexities. Illumination of the structure of moral problems is the primary task of applied ethics; to this, the constructive normative argument must take a back seat. Accordingly, what this article will offer in the way of answers will be, at best, tentative and highly provisional. All the same, some attention will be devoted to proposing guidelines that might assist in resolving conflicting claims of human rights. [End Page 908] II. The Issues The Islamic presence in Western Europe is marked by a good deal of diversity; France’s Algerians, Germany’s Turks, and the United Kingdom’s Pakistanis are only the most prominent of the predominantly Muslim immigrant populations that have established themselves as minorities in recent decades, in some cases, joining small groups of indigenous Muslims. 4 Equally variegated have been the receptions accorded this influx in the respective countries of destination, with respect to both the legal incorporation of the newcomers and their social and economic integration. 5 All the same, the encounter between...

Contents: Introduction, Richard Sorabji and David Rodin. Part I Traditions: Just war from ancient origins to the Conquistadors debate and its modern relevance, Richard Sorabji The just war of Eastern Christians and the holy war of the Crusaders, Angeliki Laiou Conceptions of justice in war: from Grotius to modern times, Karma Nabulsi Arguments concerning resistance in contemporary Islam, John Kelsay War and reason in Maimonides and Averroes, Noah Feldman The ethics of war: Judaism, Norman Solomon Just war in the Mahabharata, Nick Allen. Part II Contemporary Problems: The ethics of asymmetric war, David Rodin Preventive war and the killing of the innocent, Jeff McMahan War, humanitarian intervention and human rights, Richard Norman Culture, the enemy and the moral restraint of war, Anthony Coates Application of just war criteria in the period 1959-89, Richard Harries Britain's wars since 1945, Michael Quinlan Index.

The Law of Peoples

In the previous chapter we focused closely on the aspects of Kant’s discussion of the right to go to war which demonstrated the widest possible divergence between the account in Perpetual Peac. and the account in Metaphysics of Morals. Published (and probably written) at slightly different times they clearly do not in every respect follow the same line of argument. Those writers who suggest that Kant takes a view that favours just war theory tend to emphasize the argument presented in Metaphysics of Moral. at the expense of the view presented in Perpetual Peace. They do so to show that the strong opposition Kant evinces in Perpetual Peace to the doctrine of just war, as advanced by the international lawyers of the period, represents an anomaly in relation to his view on war as a whole. But a strong case for continuity can be made between the interpretations offered in the two works, and even (perhaps less strongly) a case for a lack of conflict between the two. Matthias Kaufmann has presented an interesting line of argument on this issue in his article ‘What is New in the Theory of War in Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals?’ 1 . He acknowledges that ‘at first glance, there are many new elements in the Right of Nation. contained within the Metaphysics of Moral. when compared to Kant’s writings on similar topics.’2 Kaufmann has particularly in mind here of course the contra just war arguments of Perpetual Peace. however he believes the ‘frictions are mitigated considerably if we look closely at the key ideas’.3

This work constitutes a full analysis of Just War Theory in each of its aspects, representing a complete exposition of the corpus of International Law,Jus ad Bellum, and exploring Humanitarian Law of Armed Conflict,Jus in Bello. This comprises the rules that should govern armed conflict, and is called humanitarian precisely because it aims at safeguarding humanitarian values and human rights in times of war. Consequently, this book covers the Law of War in its entirety, both theJus ad Bellumcategory – justifications of war – as well as theJus in Bellocategory. Extensively analyzed are the following aspects of the use of military force: Self-Defense in International Law, Humanitarian Intervention, National Liberation Wars, Pro-democracy intervention, United Nations Peacekeeping and Peace-enforcement action, Nuclear Weapons, Law of Armed Conflict - International Humanitarian Law, Illegal Use of Force and Statehood.

Reviewed by: Recovering Christian Realism: Just War Theory as a Political Ethic by H. David Baer Maurice Lee Recovering Christian Realism: Just War Theory as a Political Ethic. By H. David Baer. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014. viii + 119 pp. This slim volume seeks to articulate the political-theological reasoning underlying the classical just war ethic, drawing heavily (though not exclusively) on modern sources and using an irenically Lutheran perspective. The first chapter offers a framework for the project, briefly critiquing both the Niebuhrian “realist” position and Yoder/Hauerwas-style pacifism, and an overview of Baer’s argument. [End Page 76] The central chapters consider the series of classical just-war criteria derived from Aquinas, each raising issues addressed by the next. Chapter 2, “The criterion of legitimate authority,” uses a two-kingdom approach to identify the heart of the political act—that is, what a legitimate human government does—as judgment informed by love in the service of God’s kingdom, both establishing the locus of the authority to use power (force) and inviting ethical evaluation of the use of that power. Chapter 3, “The criterion of just cause,” finds, since political justice is relative to the particular interests of communities (nations) and their governments, and no actual government may rise above its particularity to render universal judgment, that force may be employed only for defense, with rare exceptions. Chapter 4, “The criterion of just intention,” explores the larger purpose of international relations—relations among political communities—identifying it as a peace harmonizing the various interests of a plurality of communities and consistent with the moral (not narrowly legal) “Law of Nations.” Chapter 5, “Justice in bello,” taking as a fundamental principle of ethical conduct in warfare the “principle of discrimination”— that is, the difference between combatants and civilians—reflects on the perpetual problems of proportionality and collateral damage. A final chapter accepts and defends the label “Christian realism” for the position that the author has outlined. Baer’s argument is accessible even without a specialist’s familiarity with just-war discussions. Some points might be puzzling for the beginner in the absence of other resources. For example, the distinction between ius ad bellum and ius in bello is not introduced before it is used. Moreover, the contours of the deeper theological vision animating “Christian realism” are not made clear. The author’s Lutheran allegiance and Luther himself are appealed to (not, to be sure, in an exclusive or partisan fashion), but why this should be particularly appropriate is not explained. Key terms like “kingdom of God” and “eschatology”—and, for that matter, “love”—are deployed but not developed. Baer maintains critical distance from the Christian pacifist tradition, interacting with it and its concerns very little. He does not apply the argument to messy, concrete instances of international conflict (as in Michael Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars, 2006), except for a brief, fascinating reflection on the first Iraq war in Chapter 6. [End Page 77] All of these issues are easily explained by the book’s limited size and scope. In its purpose, laying out a theologically-grounded way to understand the unity and cogency of classical just-war thinking, given certain clear assumptions, this book is informative, insightful, and provocative. Maurice Lee Prince of Peace Lutheran Church Santa Barbara, California Copyright © 2016 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc.

This article tries to examine John Rawls’ theories of war and nuclear weapons especially from the perspective of international law. Rawls's theory of war is based on the just war theory of Western tradition. It rejects realism and does not adopt pacifism. Rawls's theory of jus ad bellum is similar to the position of current international law in that it recognizes a war of self-defense and exceptionally a war of humanitarian intervention. HIs theory of jus in bello largely reflects the principles of existing International Humanitarian Law(IHL), such as the distinction between combatants and civilians, protection of human rights, and restrictions on military necessity. However, Rawls deviates from international humanitarian law in that it permits military action against civilians in the case of the so-called supreme emergency. Regarding nuclear weapons, it differs from the existing International Court of Justice (ICJ) theory of nuclear permitting by permitting nuclear weapons only to well-ordered peoples and presenting human rights standards for nuclear use. In addition, by evaluating the Hiroshima-Nagasaki atomic bombings as great wrongs, it presents a precedent in international humanitarian law for the use of nuclear weapons. The official position of the United States regarding the Hiroshima-Nagasaki atomic bombings was that it was a justifiable measure to end the war early. However, Rawls rejects the U.S. government's arguments and says that the atomic bombing was a representative case of the failure of so-called 'statesmanship'. This article attempted to support Rawls's perspective from the perspective of international humanitarian law. The claim that the Hiroshima-Nagasaki atomic bombings were intended to reduce the casualties of U.S. soldiers does not comply with the principle of military necessity under international humanitarian law. Additionally, the claim that it was an inevitable choice to reduce the damage to Japanese civilians that would result from a prolonged war is not valid in that there was room for a third option to end the war. The dropping of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki atomic bombs reflected America's political interest for the victory of unconditional surrender and ending the war before Russia (the former Soviet Union) entered the war. This did not comply with the principles of military necessity or humanitarian necessity of international humanitarian law.

Post bellum justice considers vindication of human rights and prosecution on occasion of its violation essential to establish just peace at the end of war. An inquiry into the interrelationship between justice in the commencement, during, and at the end of war reveals the centrality of human rights and just peace. Conversely, jus post bellum's failure is associated with discrepancies in jus ad bellum and jus in bello conditions of just war (JW). The study, therefore, observes an intricate relationship between the three conditions of just war. This correlation is further stressed on the importance of jus ad bellum criteria of right intention and proportionality principle of jus in bello to rightly administer judgment for crimes committed during war. To complement the already existing laws of warfare, the paper distinguished crimes based on intention into presumptuous, not-presumptuous, and un-presumptuous. Thus, all three conditions of just war synergistically work together to justify a just war claim for right resort to force.

Having in mind that peace is a basic, universal social and legal value and a substantial prerequisite for realising all other values, the author observes the complex relationship between peace and the rule of law. In that relationship of mutual dependence, one of the disputable matters could be the fact that the issue resembles a chicken-and-egg dilemma: which of the two values is the preceding factor, which one is older, which one should be considered the cause and which one the consequence? Is peace a necessary environment for the rule of law establishing, or the rule of law is a necessary prerequisite for peace? The answer to this question depends primarily on how the rule of law is perceived. Following the prevalent view that the rule of law is a formal/material concept, which implies that it has both institutional and value aspects, the author takes a standpoint that the value-openness of the rule of law concept should be regarded as its advantage rather than a weakness. The author criticises the one-sided perception of the rule of law based exclusively on the ideology and values of liberalism and the tendency among western countries to present that vision of the rule of law as the only one that can ensure peace. According to the position of liberal scholars, without 'liberal peace', war and disorder would govern. However, the reality proves that imposition and export of a liberal version of the rule of law and the tendency to establish universal 'liberal peace' could also feed wars and conflicts. Correlation between peace and the rule of law is required but is not necessary (if one perceives the rule of law in its 'thinnest' form - the existence of an order). However, without peace, it is impossible to establish any kind of value-based 'thick' rule of law. On the other hand, no one-sided value-burdened vision of the rule of law is a necessary prerequisite for the existence of peace and order. The author believes that if there is a wish to take a step in the direction of 'perpetual peace' in Kant's sense, the necessary presumption is tolerance and open-mindedness toward different ideological (value) models of the rule of law.

UN-Anonymous: Reflections on Human Rights in Peace Negotiations* Felice D. Gaer (bio) I. The Role of the Human Rights Community In contrast to the pathetically weak response by nation states and international organizations to ethnic cleansing and the war in Bosnia, the human rights community stands out for having focused world attention on atrocious abuses in flagrant disregard of all civilized behavior, and on the need to uphold international principles and promises. The human rights movement pursued the truth in a timely and principled manner, creatively championed emergency sessions and new international war crimes bodies to press international officials to look into rights abuses, and called urgently for the protection of those suffering. Its influence in making human rights issues a mainstream concern in the conflict was impressive. Thus it is particularly surprising that an anonymous author took a giant fly swatter to the [End Page 1] movement in a recent issue of the Human Rights Quarterly. 1 “Thousands of people are dead who should have been alive—because moralists were in quest of the perfect peace,” he wrote in the June 1996 lead article. 2 II. Behavior Can Prolong Negotiations: Do Facts Speak Louder Than Words? Anonymous’ conclusion that the “moralists” prolonged the war by raising demands for justice is unsupported in his article. It is true that the war was prolonged. But it can be argued far more strongly that the unwillingness of the international community to uphold the principles it proclaimed emboldened the ethnic cleansers and warriors to continue to conduct both atrocities and military battles for “facts on the ground,” thereby prolonging the peace negotiations. Moreover, the UN and European Union negotiators could not deliver on either their threats or their promises—not merely because they lacked “armies” and “clout” other than economic sanctions, as Anonymous notes, but particularly because of the vagaries of policy and the shifting support from officials of different states. Eventually, this rendered them ineffective as authoritative international negotiators. As a result, new negotiating teams (such as the contact group, and later Richard Holbrook’s team) entered the picture. Each set of new faces further prolonged the search for peace. At least three different groups of “moralists” come in for criticism at different points in Anonymous’ article: 1. the human rights movement, including international officials appointed within the UN framework to report on, evaluate, prosecute, and adjudicate information about the atrocities and abuses in former Yugoslavia since 1991; 2. unnamed “pundits and penwarriors” who reportedly sent up “howls” and charges of “Munich” over the Vance-Owen peace plan and plans that followed it; and 3. officials of the Clinton Administration in Washington, termed the “moralists of yesteryear” and “unrepentant apologists” for the Dayton Accords. Anonymous often casually mixes the three categories together, appearing to blame the human rights community for the actions of politicians, news commentators, and others. He treats all the “moralists” as if they were [End Page 2] a single entity, organized and unified in their demands, and points his finger at them. In contrast, he thoughtfully attempts to draw lines between the functions of UN special rapporteurs and peace negotiators. Anonymous wrongly implies that all the “moralists” had the same impact, or perhaps motive: to prolong the killing. It is rather surprising that someone who repeatedly articulates such a sense of moral responsibility for the ongoing killing is so quick to adopt a realpolitik approach to its outcome. Anonymous cites the London Conference as the source of the principles that guided the UN-EU negotiators. And yet the London Conference offers evidence that the international community itself prolonged the war by offering only lip service to the principles it approved: international peacekeepers and officials failed utterly to back up the normative and human rights principles that were proclaimed at the London Conference and in each of the peace plans that followed. The implications of the international community’s inaction can also be summed up by repeating Anonymous’ remark that “thousands of people are dead who should have been alive.” Tens of thousands more have suffered atrocious abuses. And yet, ironically, it is the human rights community that feels responsibility for the atrocities it cannot prevent, while the international...

Reviewed by: Justifying Revolution: Law, Virtue, and Violence in the American War of Independence ed. Glenn A. Moots and Philip Hamilton Zara Anishanslin (bio) Keywords Just war theory, Warfare, American Revolutionary War, Military history Justifying Revolution: Law, Virtue, and Violence in the American War of Independence. Edited by Glenn A. Moots and Philip Hamilton. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018. Pp. 392. Cloth, $45.00.) The organizers of the edited volume Justifying Revolution: Law, Virtue, and Violence in the American War of Independence have a simple yet potent justification for their work: It is the first book to examine the American Revolution within the context of just-war theory. The editors, Glenn Moots and Philip Hamilton, rightly point out that such a theoretical application is overdue. They also argue that the fact the American Revolution was "hard, bloody, and destructive" (3) makes it particularly fruitful for such analysis. For these reasons, the volume is a welcome contribution to the historiography of the American Revolution writ large. Co-edited by a professor of history and a professor of political science and philosophy, the book offers a laudably interdisciplinary spectrum of scholars who, at times, contradict one another, most notably around the central question of whether or not the American Revolution was a "just war." This leaves the reader wishing the editors had included a "Conclusion" to tie the volume together. Aside from that omission, the book's structure is logical. After the editors' "Introduction," it moves from a section on "Jus ad Bellum" (justifi-cations for waging rebellion or starting war), to one on "Jus in Bello" (the ethics of wartime conduct toward civilians and military both), before a concluding section, "Jus post Bellum" (the morality of post-war diplomacy and peace). This structure moves the reader from thinking—as those who lived through the revolutionary era would have done—about legal and ethical applications of just-war theory before, during, and after the beginning and end of armed conflict. Although the editors frame the [End Page 117] volume as one engaging just-war theory writ large, this is, as they term it, "western" just-war theory. In fact, the book's focus is overwhelmingly Euro- and Euro American-centric. Fans of Swiss legal theorist Emer de Vattel, author of Law of Nations (1758), will find much to enjoy here. Norwegian law professor Andreas Aure walks the reader through an intellectual genealogy explaining why Vattel was the "most influential voice concerning just war theory" among revolutionary era leaders (22), while international affairs professor Theodore Christov examines the fondness that George Washington and other Americans such as James Otis had for Vattel. Moots and Valerie Ona Morkeviĉius, both political scientists, consider Vattel alongside other Protestant thinkers such as John Calvin, as their focus is Protestant ideas about justifications for war and rebellion over two centuries, a welcome look at religion and war. However, despite admitting that, "historians disagree about the precise role of Protestant religion in the Revolution" (48), they do not really address this historiography, instead presenting us with a Revolution almost uniformly peopled by Reformed Protestants. Jack P. Greene also takes us back and forth across the Atlantic to look at this "fratricidal war." Relying upon pamphlet literature, Greene looks at "coercionists" and "conciliationists" in both Britain and America, tracing the arguments of those in favor of using force against rebel colonists and those against. As he pithily notes, "British coercionists should be accorded a place among the founders of the nation that came into being as an unintended consequence of their resort to military measures" (97–98). Greene's point that both British and American public opinion should be studied is a crucial yet too often underemphasized one—though he, like other authors in the book, neglects the importance of visual culture in transatlantic propaganda. Greene's chapter finds a useful companion in historian William Anthony Hay's edifying look at shifting British strategies and claims of sovereignty jus post bellum. Chapters by Philip Hamilton and Jonathan Den Hartog also form useful companion pieces for different chronological stages, in this case through biopic analyses. Hamilton's focus on Henry Knox's gentlemanly ideals about jus in bello and...

International Organizations & Democracy Marc F. Plattner and Larry Jay Diamond World politics has entered a new era. The outlines of the emerging post-Cold War international order may still be fuzzy, but at least two of its distinguishing features are clear—the ascendancy of democratic ideas and regimes, and an increasing trend toward multilateral organization and action. There manifestly seems to be a connection between these two developments, but its precise nature is not easy to specify. The series of articles that follows is devoted to exploring the complex relationship between democracy and multilateralism. In part, these essays are meant to convey some sense of the growing attention that is being devoted to democracy today by the world's leading international organizations. Carl Gershman writes on the United Nations; Neil Kritz discusses the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), along with the Council of Europe; Heraldo Muñoz and Peter Hakim provide a pair of complementary studies on the Organization of American States (OAS); and Clement Nwankwo and Larry Garber offer short essays on the newest and most hesitant entrant in this field, the Organization of African Unity (OAU). Thus this series covers both the premier worldwide organization and the major continent-spanning regional organizations. Also mentioned at least in passing are a number of other multilateral bodies—ranging from the European Community to UNESCO to the international financial institutions—that would merit greater scrutiny in a truly comprehensive study of this subject. The heightened multilateral concern with democracy is apparent in a series of key resolutions and agreements that are discussed in these essays: the Santiago documents of the OAS; the CSCE's Copenhagen and Moscow documents and Charter of Paris; and the UN resolution on free elections. But it is also reflected in the creation of new institutional structures within these bodies. In the past few years the OAS has established a Democracy Unit, the CSCE an Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, and the UN a Unit on Free Elections. It is perhaps not surprising that active support for democracy is most advanced in the OAS and the CSCE, the two regional bodies that are largely composed of democratic governments, or that the OAU, which is still dominated by authoritarian governments, lags significantly behind in this regard. But this simple and obvious correlation has some important implications. In Perpetual Peace, his classic 1795 work envisioning the creation of a league of nations, Immanuel Kant proposed as the "First Definitive Article" of such an association that "The Civil Constitution of Every [End Page 3] State Should Be Republican." Only representative (as opposed to arbitrary or despotic) government, according to Kant, is based upon the rule of law; moreover, republican governments are much less likely to start wars, precisely because they must have the consent of their citizens in order to do so. Kant argues that an international league dedicated to peace and the law of nations can form around a powerful republic and gradually be extended to encompass more and more states. In the article that concludes our series, Morton Halperin and Kristen Lomasney, citing the model of the U.S. Constitution and echoing Kant's emphasis on the centrality of republican government, propose that the "international community" guarantee constitutional democratic government to people around the world. They adduce an impressive body of evidence to show how far international law has recently moved toward affirming a "democratic entitlement." Yet skeptics may well wonder if a world community that is still, roughly speaking, only half democratic is capable of endorsing, much less enforcing, such a guarantee. The prospects of success are clearly much greater in organizations (like the OAS) whose members are overwhelmingly democratic, and where the self-interest of freely elected governments impels them to oppose the forceful overthrow of constitutional democratic regimes. A crucial factor, then, in assessing the likely impact of multilateralism on democracy is the nature of the regimes that prevail in member states. If during the Cold War international organizations were indifferent or sometimes even hostile to the cause of democracy, this was due less to the many other complications caused by the East-West rivalry than to the preponderance in...

This article evaluates Israel’s military operations in Gaza from 2023 to 2024 through the lens of Just War Theory (JWT), focusing on both the justification for war (jus ad bellum) and conduct in war (jus in bello). Although Israel invokes Article 51 of the UN Charter to justify its actions as self-defense, the analysis reveals ethical and legal concerns regarding Just War principles, particularly proportionality, discrimination, and military necessity. A qualitative case study approach is employed, drawing on primary and secondary sources, including Israeli government declarations, international human rights reports, and civilian casualty data. The data is analyzed using thematic analysis, structured around the principles of Just War Theory. The study finds that while Israel’s self-defense rationale may fulfill some jus ad bellum criteria, its military actions raise ethical and legal concerns under jus in bello. Evidence points to disproportionate force, inadequate distinction between combatants and civilians, and questionable military necessity in several operations conducted in Gaza. International reactions are divided, with some countries, like the United States, supporting Israel’s right to self-defense, while others, like South Africa, condemn its actions as potential violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). This study makes a unique contribution to the literature by applying classical JWT to a contemporary asymmetric conflict complicated by technological warfare. It advances academic discourse on the ethics of state conduct in irregular wars and offers practical insights on aligning military necessity with moral responsibility in future conflicts.