Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
A just war describes a war that satisfies a set of moral or legal rules. Though in origin a Catholic doctrine, Francisco de Vitoria based his arguments on reason and so put the tradition on a more universal basis.  The rules applied may be ethical, religious, or formal (such as international law). The rules classically cover the justification for the war (Jus ad Bellum) and the conduct of the participants in the war (Jus in Bello).
Just war theory has ancient roots. Cicero discussed this idea and its applications. Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas later codified a set of rules for a just war, which today still encompass the points commonly debated, with some modifications.
In modern language, these rules hold that to be just, a war must meet the following criteria before the use of force:
(Jus ad Bellum)
- War can only be waged for a just cause, such as self-defense against an armed attack.
- War can only be waged under legitimate authority. Usually the constitution and the laws of a nation state specify the institutions and personnel authorized to make war decisions. The U.N Charter authorizes the Security Council to make the international community's war decisions. Citizens at their own will cannot attack another country without the permission of the legitimate authority. Conversely, in a democratic nation state, statesmen with legitimate authority will need to convince citizens that their course of action is legal and proper.
- War can only be waged with the right intention. Correcting a suffered wrong is considered a right intention, while material gain is not. Thus a war that would normally be just for all other reasons would be made unjust by a bad intention. Right intention requires that democratic statesmen accept the decision of their nations' courts and electorates on the legitimacy and the justice of their action.
- War can only be waged with a reasonable chance of success. It is considered unjust to meaninglessly waste human life and economic resources if defeat is unavoidable.
- War must be waged with proportionality in mind. The suffering which existed pre-war should not be overshadowed by the suffering the war may cause.
- War can only be waged as a last resort. War is not just until all realistic options which were likely to right the wrong have been pursued.
- Just war conduct should be governed by the principle of discrimination. The acts of war should be directed towards the inflictors of the wrong, and not towards civilians caught in circumstances they did not create. The prohibited acts include bombing civilian residential areas that include no military target and committing acts of terrorism or reprisal against ordinary civilians. Some theologians believe that this rule forbids weapons of mass destruction of any kind, for any reason (such as the use of an atomic bomb).
- Just war conduct should be governed by the principle of proportionality. The force used must be proportional to the wrong endured, and to the possible good that may come. The more disproportional the number of collateral civilian deaths, the more suspect will be the sincerity of a belligerent nation's claim to justness of a war it initiated.
- Torture, of combatants or of non-combatants, is forbidden.
- Prisoners of war must be treated respectfully.
- Many throughout history have considered conscription an unjust means, e.g.
The condition of proportionality is often misunderstood. A quote from Ambrosius may well clarify it. Taking an example of a traveler coming to the aid of a fellow traveler who has been attacked by a robber he says "At the same time, the Christian should use no more force than necessary to subdue the attacker, for that person too is someone for whom Christ died. Charity thus justifies the resort to force in defense, not in self but of the other; yet at the same time it limits the force that can be used against the evildoer to what is necessary to end the evil." Hence minimum force is used here in the ethical sense of minimum harm. It is not in conflict with the Powell doctrine of overwhelming force. If overwhelming force in the military sense produces less harm then it can be seen as minimum force in the ethical sense used by Just War theorists.
Just war theorists
- Cicero (106 BC–43 BC)
- Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
- St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
- Stanislaw of Skarbimierz (1360-1431)
- Francisco de Vitoria (1492-1546)
- Francisco Suarez (1548-1617)
- Hugo Grotius (1583-1645)
- Baron von Pufendorf (1632–1694)
- Emerich de Vattel (1714-1767)
- Paul Ramsey (1913-1988)
- Michael Walzer (1935- )
- Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)
- H. Richard Niebuhr (1894-1962)
- Paul Tillich (1886-1965)
- Geneva Conventions
- Jihad (the "armed struggle" variant of it, as compared to Just war)
- Passages On War
- School of Salamanca
- scorched earth
- Summa Theologica
- total war
- war crime
- Theories of A Just War
- Resources on Just War Theory
- "Whether it is always sinful to wage war?", from the Summa Theologica
- "JustWarTheory.com", a free and non-profit internet teaching and research guide to just war theory.
- The just war doctine and its application in current international law
- Humanitarian Intervention and Just War
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details