scholarly journals FromJus ad BellumtoJus ad Vim: Recalibrating Our Understanding of the Moral Use of Force

2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Brunstetter ◽  
Megan Braun
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Michael Walzer ◽  
Important Distinction ◽  
The One

In the preface of the 2006 edition ofJust and Unjust Wars, Michael Walzer makes an important distinction between, on the one hand, “measures short of war,” such as imposing no-fly zones, pinpoint air/missile strikes, and CIA operations, and on the other, “actual warfare,” typified by a ground invasion or a large-scale bombing campaign. Even if the former are, technically speaking, acts of war according to international law, he proffers that “it is common sense to recognize that they are very different from war.” While they all involve “the use of force,” Walzer distinguishes between the level of force used: the former, being more limited in scope, lack the “unpredictable and often catastrophic consequences” of a “full-scale attack.” Walzer calls the ethical framework governing these measuresjus ad vim(the just use of force), and he applies it to state-sponsored uses of force against both state and nonstate actors outside a state's territory that fall short of the quantum and duration associated with traditional warfare. Compared to acts of war,jus ad vimactions present diminished risk to one's own troops, have a destructive outcome that is more predictable and smaller in scale, severely curtail the risk of civilian casualties, and entail a lower economic and military burden. These factors makejus ad vimactions nominally easier for statesmen to justify compared to conventional warfare, though this does not necessarily mean these actions are morally legitimate or that they do not have potentially nefarious consequences.

Philosophy and Common Sense

Philosophy ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 63 (244) ◽  
pp. 161-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Jerry Fodor ◽  
Rational Acceptability ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

This paper raises once more the question of the relationship between philosophy on the one hand and common sense on the other. More particularly, it is concerned with the role which common sense can play in passing judgment on the rational acceptability (or otherwise) of large-scale hypotheses in natural philosophy and the cosmological part of metaphysics. There are, as I see it, three stages through which the relationship has passed in the course of the twentieth century. There is the era of G. E. Moore, the Quine–Feyerabend period, and now a new and modest vindication of common sense is emerging in the work of Jerry Fodor.

International Law and Armed Conflict

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ward Thomas
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Just War ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The Other ◽  
World War ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Raison D’État ◽  
The One

International law and armed conflict have a rather contentious history together. One the one hand, armed conflict implies and absence of law, and yet, on the other, international law plays an important role in codifying the use of force. The UN Charter’s restrictions on the use of force, drafted in the waning days of a second cataclysmic world war, were intended to radically transform the centuries-old ideology of raison d’état, which viewed war as a sovereign prerogative. More precisely, Article 2(4) of the Charter forbids not just war but force of any kind, or even the threat of it. On its face, the Charter system is a model of simplicity, consisting of a clear prohibition and two exceptions to that prohibition. The apparent simplicity is misleading, however. Article 2(4) is violated so often that experts disagree about whether it should even be considered good law. The Chapter VII enforcement exception is rarely used, and the meaning of self-defense under Article 51 is the subject of contentious disagreement. Moreover, even some UN bodies have supported creating another exception (humanitarian intervention) that coexists uneasily with the organization’s foundational principles. In addition, there is yet another exception (the use of force by national liberation movements) that may be as significant as the others, yet is little discussed by contemporary commentators.

scholarly journals China-Taiwan Threats of Force and the Paradox of the ‘Nuclear Weapons Principle’

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-426
Author(s):  
Sondre Torp Helmersen
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The Other ◽  
Apparent Paradox ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Republic Of China ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The One

Abstract The People’s Republic of China (‘China’) has adopted legislation threatening to invade the Republic of China (‘Taiwan’) if the latter declares independence. Threats of force are prohibited by the UN Charter Article 2(4) and equivalent customary international law. This article proceeds along two apparently contradictory strands. On the one hand, the prohibition probably does not apply to non-State entities such as the Republic of China. One the other hand, the ICJ stated in the Nuclear Weapons opinion that ‘if the use of force itself in a given case is illegal […] the threat to use such force will likewise be illegal’. If the Republic of China declares independence it will become a State, making a PRC invasion illegal. Therefore, the PRC’s current threats should also be illegal. The best way to resolve this apparent paradox is to say that the ICJ’s ‘Nuclear Weapons principle’ must be nuanced.

“Community Interests” and the Role of International Law in the Creation of a Global Market for Agricultural Land

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jochen von Bernstorff
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Land Grab ◽  
Large Scale Land ◽  
The One

The chapter explores the notion of “community interests” with regard to the global “land-grab” phenomenon. Over the last decade, a dramatic increase of foreign investment in agricultural land could be observed. Bilateral investment treaties protect around 75 per cent of these large-scale land acquisitions, many of which came with associated social problems, such as displaced local populations and negative consequences for food security in Third World countries receiving these large-scale foreign investments. Hence, two potentially conflicting areas of international law are relevant in this context: Economic, social, and cultural rights and the principles of permanent sovereignty over natural resources and “food sovereignty” challenging large-scale investments on the one hand, and specific norms of international economic law stabilizing them on the other. The contribution discusses the usefulness of the concept of “community interests” in cases where the two colliding sets of norms are both considered to protect such interests.

Ontology and Perception

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-58
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S. Galko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Complex Environment ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Ontological Question ◽  
The One ◽  
Bodies Of Water ◽  
The Relationship

The ontological question of what there is, from the perspective of common sense, is intricately bound to what can be perceived. The above observation, when combined with the fact that nouns within language can be divided between nouns that admit counting, such as ‘pen’ or ‘human’, and those that do not, such as ‘water’ or ‘gold’, provides the starting point for the following investigation into the foundations of our linguistic and conceptual phenomena. The purpose of this paper is to claim that such phenomena are facilitated by, on the one hand, an intricate cognitive capacity, and on the other by the complex environment within which we live. We are, in a sense, cognitively equipped to perceive discrete instances of matter such as bodies of water. This equipment is related to, but also differs from, that devoted to the perception of objects such as this computer. Behind this difference in cognitive equipment underlies a rich ontology, the beginnings of which lies in the distinction between matter and objects. The following paper is an attempt to make explicit the relationship between matter and objects and also provide a window to our cognition of such entities.

Grotian Moments and Peremptory Norms of General International Law: Friendly Facilitators or Fatal Foes?

Grotiana ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 335-353
Author(s):  
Dire Tladi
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
High Threshold ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
State Practice ◽  
The One ◽  
Jus Cogens ◽  
The Right ◽  
Peremptory Norms ◽  
Law Making

Abstract The concept of a Grotian moment remains rather obscure in international law. On the one hand, it can refer simply to an empirical fact which galvanises the ordinary law-making processes, whether treaty-making or State practice, resulting in major shifts in international law. On the other hand, a Grotian moment might be seen as an event so significant that it results in an extraordinary shift in international law without full adherence to the processes for law-making. The former understanding has little legal significance, while the latter, which would be legally significant, would be controversial and without legal basis. Against this background the article discusses the intersections between peremptory norms and Grotian Moments. It does this by looking at the intersection between the two concepts as well as the intersection between Grotian Moments, on the one hand and, on the other hand, particular jus cogens norms. With respect to the former, for example, the article will consider whether the high threshold of peremptory status facilitates and hinders Grotian moments. With respect to the latter, the article will consider particular norms that have been said to have shifted on account of the Grotian moments, namely the right to use of force in self-defence as well humanitarian intervention.

Between the utopian imaginaries of literature and international law: The question of the insurgent child in international legal discourse and Kris Montañez’s Youth

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
José Duke S. Bagulaya
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
Utopian Vision ◽  
The World ◽  
Realistic Representation ◽  
The One

Abstract This article argues that international law and the literature of civil war, specifically the narratives from the Philippine communist insurgency, present two visions of the child. On the one hand, international law constructs a child that is individual and vulnerable, a victim of violence trapped between the contending parties. Hence, the child is a person who needs to be insulated from the brutality of the civil war. On the other hand, the article reads Filipino writer Kris Montañez’s stories as revolutionary tales that present a rational child, a literary resolution of the dilemmas of a minor’s participation in the world’s longest-running communist insurgency. Indeed, the short narratives collected in Kabanbanuagan (Youth) reveal a tension between a minor’s right to resist in the context of the people’s war and the juridical right to be insulated from the violence. As their youthful bodies are thrown into the world of the state of exception, violence forces children to make the choice of active participation in the hostilities by symbolically and literally assuming the roles played by their elders in the narrative. The article concludes that while this narrative resolution appears to offer a realistic representation and closure, what it proffers is actually a utopian vision that is in tension with international law’s own utopian vision of children. Thus, international law and the stories of youth in Kabanbanuagan provide a powerful critique of each other’s utopian visions.

scholarly journals Major projects in urban sites: Challenge of the Builders

2018 ◽  
Vol 149 ◽  
pp. 02003
Author(s):  
Ammar Dhouib
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
The Other ◽  
Observational Method ◽  
Urban Construction ◽  
Environmental Requirements ◽  
The One ◽  
Urban Sites ◽  
Displacement Measurements

Faced with the complexity of urban construction projects and difficulties in the field, engineers must, on the one hand, dimension with rigor and common sense the foundations with all the requirements of today of quality, conformity and respect of deadlines and budget and take into account, on the other hand, safety and environmental requirements and societal and sustainable development criteria, the purpose of this communication is to present concrete projects of foundations and excavation deep in geologically heterogeneous and highly urbanized sites, with monitoring and displacement measurements in order to compare predictions with reality and to promote the "observational method".

scholarly journals FOLLOW THE MONEY: A LARGE-SCALE INVESTIGATION OF MONETIZATION AND OPTIMIZATION ON YOUTUBE

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Coromina ◽  
Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández ◽  
Bernhard Rieder
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
The Other ◽  
Media Industries ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Media System ◽  
Critical Media ◽  
Revenue Streams ◽  
Dominant Actor ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

While YouTube has become a dominant actor in the global media system, the relationship between platform, advertisers, and content creators has seen a series of conflicts around the question of monetization. Our paper draws on a critical media industries perspective to investigate the relationship between YouTube’s evolving platform strategies on the one side and content creators’ tactical adaptations on the other. This concerns the search for alternative revenue streams as well as content and referencing optimization seeking to grow audiences and algorithmic visibility. Drawing on an exhaustive sample (n=153.770) of “elite” channels (more than 100.000 subscribers) and their full video history (n=138.340.337), we parse links in video descriptions to investigate the appearance and spread of crowdfunding platforms like Patreon, but also of affiliate links, merchandise stores, or e-commerce websites like Etsy. We analyze the evolution of video length and posting frequency in response to platform policy as well as visibility tactics such as metadata and category optimization, keyword stuffing, or title phrasing. Taken together, these elements provide a broad picture of “industrialization” on YouTube, that is, of the ways creators seek to develop their channels into media businesses. While this contribution cannot replace more qualitative, in-depth research into particular channels or channel groups, we hope to provide a representative picture of YouTube’s elite channels and their quest for visibility and success from their beginnings up to early 2020.

scholarly journals A Dilemma for the Scientific Realist

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Howard Sankey
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
The Other ◽  
Scientific Realist ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Evidential Basis ◽  
Apparent Conflict

This note poses a dilemma for scientific realism which stems from the apparent conflict between science and common sense. On the one hand, we may accept scientific realism and agree that there is a conflict between science and common sense. If we do this, we remove the evidential basis for science and have no reason to accept science in the first place. On the other hand, we may accept scientific realism and endorse common sense. If we do this, we must reject the conflict between science and common sense. The dilemma is to be resolved by distinguishing between basic common sense and widely held beliefs. Basic common sense survives the advance of science and may serve as the evidential basis for science.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document