scholarly journals In Defence of Just War: Christian Tradition, Controversies, and Cases

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-17
Author(s):  
Nigel Biggar
Keyword(s):  
Remote Control ◽  
International Law ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Just War ◽  
National Interest ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Cyber Aggression ◽  
The People ◽  
Conceptual Problems

This article presents four controversial issues that are raised by the articulation of just war thinking in my book, In Defence of War (2013, 2014): the conception of just war as punitive, the penultimate nature of the authority of international law, the morality of national interest, and the elasticity of the requirement of proportionality. It then proceeds to illustrate the interpretation of some of the criteria of just war in terms of three topical cases: Britain’s belligerency against Germany in 1914, the Syrian rebellion against the Assad regime in 2011, and Israe’s Operation Protective Edge against Hamas in Gaza in 2013. It is often claimed that just war thinking has been rendered obsolete by novel phenomena such as nuclear weapons, wars ‘among the people’, war-by-remote-control, and cyber-aggression. The presentation of issues and cases in this article, notwithstanding its brevity, is sufficient to show that just war thinking continues to develop by wrestling with controversial conceptual problems and thinking its way through novel sets of circumstances.

scholarly journals Modern Theories and Islamic Concept of Jihad Impacting Pakistan Security Dilemma

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
pp. 76-89
Author(s):  
Muhammad Tariq Javed
Keyword(s):  
Personal Experience ◽  
Just War ◽  
National Interest ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Security Dilemma ◽  
The West ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
Western View

Pakistan National Security is directly related to a mix of Islamic precepts and the implications of contemporary real politics. Initially modern theories were a philosophical response to priesthood of the time hedging Christianity for their own predominance. With the advent of Islam the West applied the same antipathy to the faith of Islam and later it impacted Muslim states and Regions. The West however, circumvented religion as historical legacy representing Christianity. Pakistan being part of wider Muslim world is prone to historically prejudiced; direct and indirect threats based on Modern political theories. Modern theories are Euro-centric owing to their war prone regional history. Islamic Security concepts characterize trans-border implication. Modern political and security perspective are based on; personal experience of the people gone through wars and civil chaos whereas Islamic concept of just war is based on faith absolutes and Meta narratives1. Modern theories imply human nature as a pivot to craft response in anticipation of a predetermined threat to justify pre-emption. Modern theories have become the seed of modern state policies. Islam makes it obligatory to prepare and built power to first deter and retaliate only under tyranny, oppression and under the threat of expulsion and extermination. Pakistan military initiative are deemed inspired by Islamic concept of Jihad and have become cause of her Security Dilemma due to prejudiced Western view. Islam emphasis on mankind as one whole universal community called ‘Ummah’. The modern theories divide the world on National identifies and globalizes only trade and transactions. National Interest in modern theories is pivotal to the state policies. This marked difference is sometime purposely confused as a strategy to dub even a legitimate resistance or movement as Terrorism depending on National Interest expediency. The major cause of conflict is embedded in Islamic and modern political connotations of a just war. These polemical perspectives explain Pakistan Security Dilemma as part of the Muslim world and a need for negotiated understanding for peace and stability and interfaith harmony.

Superior Orders, Nuclear Warfare, and the Dictates of Conscience: The Dilemma of Military Obedience in the Atomic Age

1961 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guenter Lewy
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Law ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
World War ◽  
The People ◽  
Military Tribunal ◽  
War Crimes Trials ◽  
The Many ◽  
Nuclear Warfare ◽  
The Military

When Francis Gary Powers was asked by the presiding judge of the Soviet military tribunal trying him for espionage whether he had not considered the possibility that his U-2 flight might provoke armed conflict, the captured pilot answered, “The people who sent me should think of these things. My job was to carry out orders. I do not think it was my responsibility to make such decisions.” This article deals with a similar problem, a predicament which to this day, fortunately, has remained hypothetical, but which may become distressingly real at some time in the future. It concerns the unenviable position of the military subordinate commanded to use nuclear weapons, who may be punished today if he disobeys and prosecuted tomorrow if he obeys. The discussion initially evolves around three issues in international law: (1) the validity of the plea of superior orders as a defense in war crimes trials; (2) the question of the legality of using nuclear weapons; and (3) the present status and future of the law of war. That these problem areas are intimately related should become clear as we proceed.The disregard for humanitarian and moral considerations which has increasingly characterized the conduct of war in the twentieth century, and, more recently, the development of nuclear weapons—the tools of mass extermination par excellence—have led many students of international law to conclude that the laws of war are dead. Grotius' doctrine of the temperamenta belli, requiring belligerents to conduct hostilities with regard for the principles of humanity and chivalry, as well as the many conventions drawn up prior to World War I in order to regulate the use of violence, are said to have become largely obsolete.

Sovereignty

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hermann Heller
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Political System ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
National Sovereignty ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The People ◽  
Pluralistic World

This 1927 work addresses the paradox of sovereignty, that is, how the sovereign can be both the highest authority and subject to law. Unlike Kelsen and Schmitt who seek to dissolve the paradox, this text sees the tensions that the paradox highlights as an essential part of a society ruled by law. Sovereignty, in the sense of national sovereignty, is often perceived in liberal democracies today as being under threat, or at least “in transition,” as power devolves from nation states to international bodies. This threat to national sovereignty is at the same time considered a threat to a different idea of sovereignty, popular sovereignty—the sovereignty of “the people”—as important decisions seem increasingly to be made by institutions outside of a country’s political system or by elite-dominated institutions within. This text was written in 1927 amidst the very similar tensions of the Weimar Republic. In an exploration of history, constitutional and political theory, and international law, it shows that democrats must defend a legal idea of sovereignty suitable for a pluralistic world.

The Crisis of the Ryukyus (1877–82)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Sze-lok Leung ◽  
Anthony Carty
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Colonial Power ◽  
Independent State ◽  
The People ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Status ◽  
Historical Viewpoint

Okinawa is now considered as Japanese territory, without challenge from most world powers. However, this is debatable from a historical viewpoint. The Ryukyu Kingdom which dominated the islands was integrated into Japan in 1879. The transformation is seen by Wang Hui as a process of modernization. This chapter argues the issue from an international law perspective. It shows that Ryukyu was an independent State as demonstrated by the 1854 Ryukyu–US Treaty, although it sent regular tributes to China. The Japanese integration by coercion is not justifiable. The people of Ryukyu were willing to continue being a tributary State rather than part of Japan. Britain, as the greatest colonial power, did not object. China and the US attempted to intervene in this affair, but no treaty has so far been concluded. Therefore, the status of Ryukyu/Okinawa remains unresolved and may need to be revisited, while putting the history context into consideration.

scholarly journals Elite Decision-making and International Law: Promises and Perils of the Behavioral Revolution

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 242-247
Author(s):  
Emilie M. Hafner-Burton
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
International Law ◽  
Real World ◽  
General Public ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Direct Study ◽  
The People ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Actual Decision

A growing body of research applies behavioral approaches to the study of international law, mainly by studying convenience samples of students or other segments of the general public. Alongside the promises of this agenda are concerns about applying findings from non-elite populations to the people, and groups of people, charged with most real-world decision-making in the domain of law and governance. This concern is compounded by the fact that it is extremely difficult to recruit these actual decision-makers in a way that allows for direct study.

scholarly journals Choice and (the Awareness of) its Consequences: The ICJ's “Structural Bias” Strikes Again in the Marshall Islands Case

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 81-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Bianchi
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Marshall Islands ◽  
Young Researcher ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Rubber Stamp ◽  
International Legal Order ◽  
State Of Affairs

My very first publication, admittedly written in a language that many AJIL Unbound readers might be unable or unwilling to read, was an essay on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and its effects vis-à-vis third parties. Already back then, I found it difficult to justify how an international treaty could rubber-stamp such a highly uneven state of affairs. The overt acknowledgement of the discrimination between nuclear and nonnuclear states, the hypocrisy about “unofficial” nuclear states, and the Article VI obligation for nuclear states to negotiate effective measures of disarmament, largely ignored in the first twenty years of the treaty, were all elements that contributed to my perception of unfairness, if not blatant injustice. As a young researcher approaching international law with the enthusiasm of the neophyte, however, this looked like a little anomaly in an otherwise fair and equitable international legal order. It did not set off warning bells about the system as such. After all, international law was geared, at least in my eyes, towards enhancing the wellbeing of humanity. It must have been so. And it is not that I leaned particularly on the idealistic side; it seemed normal to me … at the time.

scholarly journals Book Review: Islam: A Worldwide Encyclopedia

2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 151
Author(s):  
Paul Fehrmann
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Senior Researcher ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Academic Debate

It is clear that the world of Islam is profoundly important, and also that there are wide and conflicting views on Islam today. Similarly, it seems clear that we should pursue efforts to promote the understanding of Islam. In response, a goal of the four volume Islam: A Worldwide Encyclopedia (IAWE) is to give “basic information on Islam” and to “shed light” on “controversial issues” (xxvii). In his opening comments, the editor, a Professor of International Law and Politics at Eskişehir Osmangazi University and Senior Researcher at the Wise Men Center for Strategic Research in Turkey, notes that there have been “a wide range of different interpretations and variations of Islam throughout history” (xxvii). He suggests that Muslims need to revive the “strong tradition of academic debate” that was integral to Islamic studies “in early decades of Islam,” and affirms support for the “diverse and plural nature of contemporary Islamic scholarship” (xxviii). At the same time, he is concerned that “disputed issues” may lead to “biases and stereotypes in the minds of Western people,” and hopes that this new resource can both “contribute to the pursuit of a common ground” between those of different faiths, and help a Western audience become more familiar with what Islam has to offer (xxviii).

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