Ethics Law And Military Operations

Public anger at perceived ethical and legal failures in recent wars has reinforced the importance of understanding military ethics. Ethics, Law and Military Operations is one of the first texts to examine both the ethical and the legal considerations of contemporary military conflict. It adopts a practical approach to explore the ways in which legal and normative issues combine to affect the entire spectrum of military operations, from high-intensity conflict to peacekeeping activities and the provision of humanitarian aid. With an operational perspective in mind, this text delivers accessible frameworks for evaluating and applying fundamental legal and ethical concepts. Written by an international team of military practitioners and academics, this book provides interdisciplinary insights into the major issues facing military decision-makers. The first half of the book explores the ethical and legal underpinnings of warfare. Later chapters use case studies to examine specific issues in the contemporary operating environment.

This book addresses issues of legal and moral governance arising in the development, deployment, and eventual uses of emerging technologies in military operations. Proverbial wisdom has it that law and morality always lag behind technological innovation. Hence, the book aims to identify, enumerate, and constructively address the problems of adequate governance for the development, deployment, and eventual uses of military technologies that have been newly introduced into military operations or which will be available in the near future. Proposals for modifications in governance, the book argues, closely track the anxieties of many critics of these technologies to the extent that they will proliferate, prove destructive in unanticipated ways, and partially or wholly escape regulation under current treaties and regulatory regimes. In addition to such concerns in domestic and especially in international law, the book addresses ethical norms in the professions involved in the design and eventual use of specific technologies, principally involving the professional norms of practice in engineering and the military (as well as biomedical and health care practice), which impose moral obligations on their members to avoid reckless endangerment or criminal negligence in the course of their activities. Thus, in addition to exploring the application of existing legal regimes and moral norms, the book examines how these professions might develop or improve the voluntary constraints on forms of malfeasance that are enshrined in their histories and codes of best practices. This book should prove of great interest to students of ethics, military studies, philosophy of war and peace, law, and international relations.

"The essays in this book are intended to inform leaders, and the general public, about the challenges of ethical decision making, the application of the law of war, and the important role of spirituality. Aspects of Leadership will educate readers and generate important questions that leaders should ask themselves, encouraging them to reflect upon their pivotal roles in these three areas" --Back cover.

In 1950, when he commissioned the first edition of The Armed Forces Officer, Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall told its author, S.L.A. Marshall, that "American military officers, of whatever service, should share common ground ethically and morally." In this new edition, the authors methodically explore that common ground, reflecting on the basics of the Profession of Arms, and the officer's special place and distinctive obligations within that profession and especially to the Constitution.

Based on best-practice rules of global importance, this handbook offers authoritative commentary and analysis of the international law of military operations, encompassing self-defence, peace operations, and other uses of force.

This essay focuses on one of the intangible elements of the art of operational leadership -- enhancing one's sense of military ethics and knowledge of the laws of war to arrive at a decision. In war, professional military ethics are inextricably woven into the fabric of the decision-making process and, along with other critical elements like desired end state and the laws of war, make up an essential part of a final decision. This essay describes the link between decision-making, ethics, and knowledge of the laws of war. This link is historically based, proven over time, and continues today. Furthermore, understanding it can be a great enabler in making sound decisions and justifying them to national and international audiences. The services should provide the necessary time and effort to ensure their senior officers are educated accordingly, regardless of the cost in time, admittedly a very scarce resource to the flag or general officer. In today's conflicts, the types of ethical issues that the operational commander, or any flag officer, will encounter are graduate level in their complexity. They require careful thought and study. When the time comes to make a decision of enormous consequence, there may not be time to look up terms like noncombatant immunity, double effect requirements, and necessity.

Following on from Ethics Education in the Military (eds. Paul Robinson, Nigel de Lee and Don Carrick: Ashgate 2008) which surveyed and critically analyzed the existing theory and practice of educating soldiers, sailors and airmen in the ethics of 'old fashioned' warfaring, this volume considers the extent to which such theory and practice is adequate to prepare members of the military to meet the more complex ethical challenges faced when engaging in irregular warfare in the 21st century. In recent years, events in Iraq and Afghanistan have highlighted the requirement that Western military personnel, drawn from the armed forces of many different countries, should behave in an ethical manner at all times. The contributors to this volume come from various disciplinary backgrounds, several are serving or former military officers and most are actively engaged in ethics education. The volume advances theoretical understanding of different approaches to ethics education and provides practical conclusions.

Dual loyalties exist in many medical fields, from occupational health to public health. Military health professionals, as all health professionals, are ethically responsible for their patients' well-being. In some situations, however, military health professionals can face unique ethical tensions between responsibilities to individual patients and responsibilities to military operations. This book summarizes the one-day workshop, Military Medical Ethics: Issues Regarding Dual Loyalties, which brought together academic, military, human rights, and health professionals to discuss these ethical challenges. The workshop examined two case studies: decisions regarding returning a servicemember to duty after a closed head injury, and decisions on actions by health professionals regarding a hunger strike by detainees. The workshop also addressed the need for improvements in medical ethics training and outlined steps for organizations to take in supporting better ethical awareness and use of ethical standards.

Moral Constraints on War offers a principle-by-principle presentation of the transcultural roots of the ethics of war in an age defined by the increasingly international nature of military intervention. Parts one and two trace the evolution of Just War theory, analyzing the principles of jus ad bellum and jus in bello: the principles that determine under what conditions a war may be started and then conducted. Each chapter provides the historical background of the principle under discussion, an explanation of the principle, and numerous historical examples of its application. In Part three, case studies apply the theories discussed to the Gulf War, the 1994 Russian intervention in Chechnya, NATO's humanitarian mission in Kosovo, and the U.S. military's actions in Afghanistan in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks. Bringing together an international coterie of philosophers and political scientists this accessible and practical guide offers students of military ethics, international law, and social conflict rich, up-to-the-minute insight into the pluralistic character of Just War Theory.

Explores the moral dimensions of the current global role of the U.S. military.