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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
The debate about the morality of using military force in the post-coldwar period has shifted decisively away from theories of ‘just wars’ between states, towards the concept of ‘humanitarian intervention’. The Bosnian and Somalian crises have been widely discussed in this context The reason for the shift is that aggression by one sovereign state against another is no longer the principal focus of attention. Most of the conflicts now going on, or likely to take place in the future, are within the borders of states, not across them. (The Kuwait case was anomalous rather than typical of the period since 1989.) Yet such conflicts can easily turn into threats to peace and security, rightly attracting the attention of the international community under the terms of the UN Charter.
Humanitarian intervention (henceforth, simply ‘intervention’) has been proposed for such purposes as the following:
to stop the fighting or enforce a cease-fire; to stop the forcible movement of populations (ethnic cleansing); to enforce the delivery of humanitarian aid and safe extraction of the sick and wounded; to preserve safe havens, zones, demilitarized areas or open cities; to restore pre-existing boundaries or enforce those newly agreed; to ‘restore’ democratic institutions — as in the ECOWAS declaration of 9 Aug. 1990; or, most ambitiously, to establish an international protectorate under UN control.
The morality of intervention in pursuit of such causes such is commonly discussed by applying the traditional criteria for a just war. These criteria are directly relevant, in so far as they apply constraints to the use of organized force, or violence.
1 This list of objectives is suggested by Sir Hugh Beach (see note 2).
2 Examples are: John Langan SJ, A Moral Case for Military Intervention in Bosnia, a paper given to the CCADD International Conference for 1993; Sir Hugh Beach, Do We need a Doctrine of Just Intervention? published by the Council for Anns Control, London, 1993; David Fisher, The Ethics of Intervention, a paper given to the Pembroke Group, London, 1993, now published in Survival (I.I.S.S.) Vol 36, No. 1 (Spring 1994) pp. 51–9; Kenneth R. Himes, ‘Just War, Pacifism and Humanitarian Intervention’ in America, Vol. 169 No. 4 (August 14, 1993), p. 10–31. Also relevant, from the point of view of international law, is Christopher Greenwood, Is There a Right of Humanitarian Intervention? in The World Today, February 1993.
3 Gaudium et Spes#79. On the legality of intervention see C. Greenwood, op. cit (note 2).
4 See D. Fisher, op. cit. for a good discussion of what just cause might mean.
5 Beach, op. cit. p. 6.
6 See Best, Geoffrey, Humanity in Warfare (London, 1983)Google Scholar Ch. 3 passim.
7 It does not appear in Aquinas's discussion of war in Summa Theologiae II IIae, Q.40. However, he does raise the issue of the use of disproportionate force in the case of the right of the individual to defend himself against unjust attack, II IIae, Q. 64 Art 7.
8 My discussion of ‘just price’ is based on R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (Pelican Books, 1948) Chapter I, ii.
9 St. Augustine, Contra Faustus, lib. 22, Cap. 74 quoted in Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II IIae, Q. 40, Art. 1: “Nocendi cupiditas, ulciscendi crudelitas … libido dominandi”.
10 Victoria, de Jure Bello, 37.
11 However, Luther continued to preach the old doctrine. See Tawney, Ch. 2, ii
12 Some later writers, such as Suarez, still held to the old idea of a public official who could settle just war questions, namely the Pope.
13 On the NPT hegemony, see a speech by Archbishop Martino, speaking for the Holy See to the UN on 25th October 1993. (Origins, 1993 pp. 381–83).
14 SirBillière, Peter de la, Storm Command (Harper Collins, London, 1992) p.94Google Scholar.
15 See Agenda for Peace#38–39. The court may soon be asked to adjudicate on the legality of nuclear weapons.
16 On the interminability of modem moral debate, see McIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue, (London, 1981), p.6Google Scholar. There have been a few tentative steps towards legal condemnation of particular actions on grounds of disproportionality. Rosalyn Higgins records a UN debate in which criticism of Israeli behaviour in connection with the 1956 war was voiced on proportionality grounds. (Higgins, R., Development of International Law Through the Political Organs of the United Nations (OUP, 1963) pp. 203–5Google Scholar). More recently an official British committee criticised Iran for prolonging the Iran/Iraq war after 1987 on the grounds that its behaviour had become disproportionate. A ‘disproponionality criticism’ of the American action to protect medical students in Grenada is also on record. (The latter two examples were suggested to me in conversation with Christopher Greenwood.)
17 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, loc. cit. (note 9).
18 John Paul II, speech to diplomats, January 1991, quoted in Himes, op. cit.
19 Pius XII, Address to the International Office of Documentation for Military Medicine, 19 October, 1953
20 Agenda for Peace#43
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