The Miracle of Generative Violence? René Girard and the Use of Force in International Law

Abstract

Drawing on Rene Girard's Violence and the Sacred, this text argues that the paucity of norms on the use of force in contemporary international law serves a distinct function. It leaves room for a violence that promotes the preservation and cohesion of a group, a community. This violence has been termed generative, and the structure created by international law around it and that occurrence of violence itself reproduces the relationship of prophecy to miracle. To prove this point, international legal texts as the U.S. National Security Strategy as well as doctrinal writing are subjected to analysis.