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This chapter traces the historical origins of the just‐war tradition from Augustine/Aquinas and explains and justifies the just‐war principles governing conduct before, during, and after war. It defends just‐war thinking from recent critics, including David Rodin. It argues that the principle of proportion rightly insists on the importance of attending to consequences. The principle is, however, applied at different levels by different players—political, strategic, theatre, and tactical. The principles were historically justified on the basis of a theory of war as punishment. But such punishment would be unjust, with aggressors escaping and ordinary soldiers being punished. More promising is Grotius' justification on analogy with the right of self‐defence. But how is that right justified? The basis for the just‐war principles needs to be sought—as with other moral principles—from the contribution that they make to human welfare and the prevention of suffering.

In response to contemporary forms of armed conflict, including genocidal civil wars and global terrorism, this book engages in a project of rethinking or revising just war principles. A main thesis is that received just war principles should be generalised, so that they are applicable by all sorts of responsible agents to all forms of armed conflict. Consequently, they would be applicable not only to interstate wars but also to civil wars, armed humanitarian interventions, armed revolutions, counterinsurgency operations, counterterrorism operations, military operations by UN peacekeeping missions, and so forth. Another main thesis is that the just cause, last resort, proportionality, and noncombatant immunity principles are the ‘core just war principles’. Roughly, each core just war principle is a necessary moral criterion for determining whether a proposed military action would be just. This introductory chapter cites five epochal events that have been pivotal for just war theory – namely, the framing of the UN Charter and the founding of the United Nations, the Cold War practise of military deterrence, the post-Cold War recognition of the responsibility to protect, the advent of the US global war on terror, and a cluster of recent targeted military operations.

The book addresses three challenges to just‐war thinking. First, how can a theory developed in medieval Christendom guide our thinking about war in a predominantly secular and increasingly morally sceptical twenty‐first century society? Second, how can a theory developed for the guidance of medieval princes offer help to ordinary service people, including the ‘strategic corporal’ whose tactical decisions may have strategic significance? Third, how can we ensure politicians and service people are not only familiar with just‐war thinking but behave justly. To answer these challenges the book develops in Part One a framework for moral reasoning—called virtuous consequentialism—that seeks to furnish a rationale for moral principles in general and the just‐war principles in particular and also a guide to their application in practice. The just‐war principles, so reinforced, are put to work in Part Two to answer contemporary security challenges.

This chapter scrutinises just war theory generally, and later chapters concentrate specifically on the core just war principles of just cause, last resort, proportionality, and noncombatant immunity. The chapter is divided into five parts. The first part addresses the question of how received just war principles should be elucidated or revised or supplemented, so as to be applicable from the standpoint of the Security Council. The second part considers the pertinence of just war theory to the intertwined topics of armed humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect. With the aim of ensuring that uses of armed force are sufficiently morally constrained, the third part discusses how a demanding just cause principle ought to be counterbalanced especially by a stringent principle of last resort. In the fourth part, the main thesis that received just war principles should be generalised is illustrated by means of the particular case of genocide in Rwanda. The fifth part introduces the related main thesis that received just war principles should be temporalised.

Can the IRA's armed struggle be morally justified according to traditional just war principles? In order to answer this question, this chapter looks at several preliminary questions. First, according to just war principles, under what conditions is the resort to war morally justified, and what are the conditions governing the morality of the conduct of war? Second, was the IRA's armed struggle accurately described as war? Third, to what extent can the IRA's campaign be morally justified according to the criteria of Just War Theory? This chapter argues that although the IRA's armed struggle, at least in some of its phases, can reasonably be described as war, it fails to satisfy key conditions both for the just initiation of war and for the just conduct of war. Despite the IRA's claims to the contrary, its armed struggle was not justified according to the principles of Just War Theory.

This chapter deals with the significant impact the just war principle of “proper authority” has on the international law governing armed conflict. It establishes that the State authority to maintain order and participate in conflict mandates the consideration of human rights norms during non-State actor conflict. Further, the impact of the criminalization of groups acting outside State authority permeates international and noninternational armed conflict. The chapter discusses the linkage between State governance and human rights. A State reluctance to have humanitarian law regulate internal hostilities frequently leaves domestic and human rights law as the normative framework of choice for resolving non-State actor challenges to its governance role. The approach by some States to apply humanitarian law on international operations as a matter of policy is also explored. Finally, this chapter looks at the challenge of “ungoverned spaces” where non-State actors thrive and often present the greatest threat to recognized States.