In this book Uwe Steinhoff describes and explains the basic tenets
of just war theory and gives a precise, succinct and highly
critical account of its present status and of the most important
and controversial current debates surrounding it. Rejecting certain
in effect medieval assumptions of traditional just war theory and
advancing a liberal outlook, Steinhoff argues that every single
individual is a legitimate authority and has under certain
circumstances the right to declare war on others or the state. He
also argues that the just cause cannot be established independently
of the other criteria of jus ad bellum (the justification of
entering a war), except for right intention, which he interprets
more leniently than the tradition does. Turning to jus in bello
(which governs the conduct of a war) he criticises the Doctrine of
Double Effect and concludes that insofar as wars kill innocents,
and be it as "collateral damage", they cannot be just but at best
justified as the lesser evil. Steinhoff gives particular attention
to the question why soldiers, allegedly, are legitimate targets and
civilians not. Discussing four approaches to the explanation of the
difference he argues that the four principles underlying them all
need to be taken into account and outlines how their weighing can
proceed if applied to concrete cases. The resulting approach does
not square the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate
targets with the distinction between soldiers and civilians, which
has extremely important consequences for the conduct of war.
Finally, Steinhoff analyses the concept of terrorism and argues
that some forms of "terrorism" are actually no terrorism at all and
that even terrorism proper can under certain circumstances be
justified. This book is a project of the Oxford Leverhulme
Programme on the Changing Character of War.
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