Toward Reconstructing the Jus Ad Bellum

Abstract

In its classic form-the doctrine of the just war, whether enun ciated by theological or secular theorists, had two main components: the jus ad bellum, which defined the morally acceptable limits within which a sovereign could and even should go to war, and the jus in bello, which set limits to the conduct of war. By contrast, to day the problem of just limitation of war is addressed almost entire ly by legal and theoretical attempts to refine the jus in bello, while there exists only a morally truncated and politically ineffective jus ad bellum. What is the contemporary status of the jus ad bellum and what makes it politically and morally inadequate are the issues I wish to address directly in this paper. Indirectly, however, I wish to speak to more fundamental questions: what are the ingredients of a moral doctrine limiting resort to war, and what is required for this to be politically workable as well? The final goal, which is far beyond the scope of this paper, is to reconstruct for our own time a doctrine on the just limitation of war which would restore the dual thrust of just war doctrine in its classic form. The history of the growth and gradual disintegration of the just war doctrine is instructive for the present task. The classical form of this doctrine was reached during the last half of the sixteenth and tne first half of the seventeenth century, a period of roughly one hundred years which saw international law emerge from the medieval and enter the modern age. Between the writings of theologians like Victoria, Molina and Suarez and those of secular jurists like Gentili and Grotius there occurs a transmutation of value base by which international law ceases to be traced to God's will for the world and becomes a science whose precepts are to be sought in the structure of the world and human relations themselves. Yet in