[Note from Kathie Malley-Morrison: Today we welcome the first of several contributions by our guest contributor Michael Corgan. Dr. Corgan is Associate Chair of International Relations and Associate Professor of International Relations at Boston University. He is a specialist in international security, Icelandic government, and American governmental institutions. He has extensive government service in political and military planning (especially NATO) and is a media analyst on security and political affairs. He has collaborated with me on several research projects concerned with perspectives on war and peace. His most recent book is Iceland and Its Alliances: Security for a Small State (2002).]
What makes a war “just”? Is a just war also a “legal” war? Understanding the distinction is important as we begin to explore the topic of just war in this series of posts.
As generally accepted, just war theory imposes six criteria for identifying a war as just:
- The war must have a just cause
- It must be initiated by a proper authority
- It must be a last resort
- The use of force must be proportional to the object to be achieved
- There must be a chance of success when one uses force; and
- The ensuing peace, if attained, must also be just.
It is the first criterion, just cause, that leads to the tension between legal war and just war.
As defined in international treaties, war is legal only if it used in self-defense (of one’s self or others). Just war theory, however, goes beyond the legal mandate and seems to permit an additional use of force–specifically in the case of what we nowadays call humanitarian intervention.
Consider the wars with which you are familiar:
- To what extent were they initiated for a just cause?
- In which cases did the initiators claim a just cause that later proved to be not the real cause for the attack on another land?
In the next post on just war, we will give further consideration to the notion of humanitarian intervention as a justification for a “just” war.
Michael T. Corgan, Associate Chair and Associate Professor of International Relations, Boston University