Towards Jus Post Bellum: ‘Ethical Warfare’ for Stabilisation in Iraq and Afghanistan

2020 ◽  
pp. 333-361
Keyword(s):  
2016 ◽  
pp. 7-38
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Gil

Following the end of the cold war, the incidence of statebuilding interventions has visibly increased in the case of dysfunctional (failed) states. Today, such interventionism in a good faith promotes liberal values and is believed to be in line with international legal regimes that makes it distinctive from neo-imperial politics. Even if state-building does not generally refer to regular warfare, it often takes analogous forms to occupation, which was codified in jus in bello at the beginning of the XXth century. While the occupation law requires occupants to maintain status quo on the occupying territory (article 43 of Hague Regulations), armed state-building is transformative by definition that seems to undermine conservative provisions of the former. The article presents traditional criteria for occupation in the Hague and Geneva conventions as well as prospects and limitations of its refinement (jus post bellum). In theory, such a redefinition could launch the formulation of the statebuilding regime, which aims to reduce deficits or double-standards in international state-building by focusing on the interests of local stakeholders of transformative projects. Hence, the Author addresses three interlocking issues: occupation within state-building, the occupation law and state-building, and transformative occupation as state-building.


Author(s):  
Ilias Plakokefalos

This chapter explores the problems that environmental damage in armed conflict pose to the determination of shared responsibility, and especially the determination of reparations, in the context of the jus post bellum. When two actors are engaged in armed conflict, there arise no serious issues as to sharing responsibility for violations. But the fact that modern armed conflicts often involve more than two actors (e.g. Libya 2011) complicates the matters arising out of environmental harm, as there may be two or more actors contributing to the same harmful event. This is a typical situation of shared responsibility. Shared responsibility provides that the problem of reparations for environmental harm is to be examined in situations where there is a multiplicity of actors that contribute to a single harmful outcome. This definition covers the breach of obligations under jus ad bellum and jus in bello, as well as under international environmental law.


Author(s):  
Matthew Gillett

This chapter examines the provisions of international criminal law applicable to serious environmental harm, particularly during non-international armed conflicts ('NIAC'). After describing incidents of serious environmental harm arising in armed conflicts, the analysis surveys the provisions of international criminal law applicable to environmental harm during NIACs, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression. It then examines the basis for extending to NIACs the protection against military attacks causing excessive environmental harm (set out in Art. 8(2)(b)(iv) of the Rome Statute), which is currently only applicable in IACs. The examination of this possible amendment of the Rome Statute covers a broad range of instruments and laws forming part of international and national legal codes, all addressing grave environmental harm. Finally, the analysis turns to accountability for environmental harm as a facet of jus post bellum, emphasizing the interconnected nature of environmental harm and cycles of violence and atrocities.


Author(s):  
Cymie R. Payne

The principle of ‘environmental integrity’ is a fundamental aspect of jus post bellum. Human life, economy, and culture depend on a healthy, functioning environment. However, environmental integrity is a complex concept to describe. Doctrinal thresholds for legally material environmental damage (significant, long-term, widespread) do not capture it. This chapter interrogates the jus post bellum literature and then turns to scholarship on wilderness management in the Anthropocene era, which also engages with the meaning of ‘environmental integrity’, ‘naturalness’, ‘unimpaired’, or, in the words of the Factory at Chorzów case which sets the international law standard for reparations of damage, ‘the situation which would, in all probability, have existed if that act had not been committed’. Recognition that pristine or historical conditions are often impossible to recover or maintain leads to the legal, ethical, and scientific analysis of evolving environmental norms that this chapter offers.


Author(s):  
Eric Patterson

Scholars and political leaders have recently grown increasingly uncomfortable with terms like victory and ‘unconditional surrender’. One reason for this becomes clear when reconsidering the concept of ‘victory’ in terms of ethics and policy in times of war. The just war tradition emphasizes limits and restraint in the conduct of war but also highlights state agency, the rule of law, and appropriate war aims in its historic tenets of right authority, just cause, and right intention. Indeed, the establishment of order and justice are legitimate war aims. Should we not also consider them exemplars, or markers, of just victory? This chapter discusses debates over how conflicts end that have made ‘victory’ problematic and evaluates how just war principles—including jus post bellum principles—help define a moral post-conflict situation that is not just peace, but may perhaps be called ‘victory’ as well.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-304
Author(s):  
Kirsten J Fisher

While there is an acknowledged overlap of transitional justice and jus post bellum, there has been no real attention to delineating a clear relationship between the two or addressing the significant differences regarding aims, scope and audience. These differences must be acknowledged and a clear relationship between the two fields needs to be demarcated for both intellectual clarity and practical reasons. It seems right to question not only where these fields of inquiry fall in relation to each other but how the two can co-exist and inform each other in a meaningful way that works to the benefit of victims of conflict and mass atrocity. Done correctly, this overlap can be ushered into a coherent research agenda where the two perspectives can be brought together in a careful and concise manner. This article aims to start to address this gap.


2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
Steven James Barela ◽  
Alexis Keller
Keyword(s):  

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 666-694
Author(s):  
James Gallen

Odious debt concerns the repudiation and cancellation of debt accrued by a State for ‘odious’ purposes. This article argues that odious debt can play a role in jus post bellum in lessening the financial burden placed on States who experience conflict and generate a clear standard for investors who seek to enforce a State’s obligations to repay its debts and other financial obligations after conflict. This article highlights several challenges inhibiting the translation of the proposal of odious debt into an international legal principle. It offers a conception of odious debt that seeks to resolve these challenges by aligning with other areas of public international law which operate concurrently. This article considers how international human rights law could give clear meaning to the contested term ‘odious’, how to conceive of the appropriate standard of care for creditors and examines potential institutions for debt resolution and potential incentives of relevant actors.


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