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The laws of war and moral judgment*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2009
Extract
Reflection on the laws of war seldom fails to produce misgivings. On the one hand, it seems clear that practices as ugly as those of warfare must be regulated, if only to secure society against the emergence of unchecked brutality. Yet when the rules that have been devised toward this end are examined, doubt is cast upon even this cheerless justification by the extent of the violence and destruction with which they are compatible. The laws of war seem to condone the use of force in pursuit of indefensible policies, as well as to allow a degree of suffering by those affected by war that is often disproportionate to the apparent advantages to be had from fighting. Even the few restraints the laws do require are frequently ignored. The result is scepticism concerning every aspect of the laws of war: their effectiveness, their legal validity (and thus their very existence as rules of law) and their defensibility in terms of the requirements of morality from which they appear so often to deviate. Such scepticism is only strengthened by reflection on the vagaries of criminal enforcement and punishment, which at times are not only ineffective, but also introduce their own special injustices. It is a scepticism well expressed in the observation that if international law is at the vanishing point of law, then the laws of war are at the vanishing point of international law. The excesses of present-day warfare have given particular impetus to one aspect of this attitude toward the laws of war, that based upon doubts concerning their moral adequacy.
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- Copyright © British International Studies Association 1977
References
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