The Rules of War

Abstract

The ongoing ‘‘war on terror,’’ the difficult postwar experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the clamoring for intervention in Darfur all highlight the ethics of war and peace. An especially prominent and useful tradition of thought about this subject is just war theory, the basic tenet of which is that warfare is sometimes morally permissible. This sets the theory apart from pacifism, which denies this principle, as well as from realism, which stipulates that war and morality have nothing to do with each other and that war ought to be considered solely as a selfish calculus of national interests regarding such things as power, security, natural resources, and economic growth. Just war theory frames basic moral rules to aid decision-makers facing the monumental challenges of war and peace. These rules fall into three categories, still referred to in their original Latin: jus ad bellum (‘‘justice of war,’’ regarding political rules for starting wars); jus in bello (‘‘justice in war,’’ regarding rules for soldierly conduct during war); and jus post bellum (‘‘justice after war,’’ regarding rules to guide the transition from conflict back to peace). Three books have recently been released that contribute to this body of theory. The most impressive book of the trio is Larry May’s War Crimes and Just War, a detailed, theoretically rich, and clearly written monograph, penned by an expert both in just war theory and domestic and international criminal law. The book has already won the American Philosophical Association’s prestigious Frank Chapman Sharp Memorial Prize. May’s work is exclusively about jus in bello, and is multidisciplinary in method, combining the positive laws of armed conflict with the very old natural law theories of such just war theorists as Alberico Gentili, Samuel Pufendorf, and Hugo Grotius. May is a particular fan of Grotius, the hugely influential seventeenth-century Dutch thinker who himself straddled the gap between law and morality. May starts the book by discussing Seneca, the ancient Roman philosopher, and ends the book with a section on the very latest war crimes trials at The Hague, passionately and persuasively arguing against the use of torture in the case of suspected or even known terrorists. This shows great historical breadth