Self-Defence, International Law, and the Six Day War
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“As long as war is regarded as wicked,it will always have its fascination.”Oscar WildeAccording to the textbooks, the unfettered right of a state to go to war was, until modern times, regarded as one of the essential trappings of statehood, an indispensable aspect of sovereignty. Such a broad assertion does however require qualification, as ever since the time of Saint Augustine, scholars have attempted to set limits to the extent of the state's discretion to go to war. The task has not been an easy one, and it may indeed aptly be remarked that “Warfare has been as difficult to justify satisfactorily in theory as it has been endemic in practice”.