The Justice Of Preventive War

In response to the 9/11 attacks and continuing threats of mass- casualty terrorism, the United States has adopted a new security strategy that emphasizes anticipatory actions, including preventive war. Prevention, undertaken in the absence of an act of aggression or an imminent threat, is prohibited by modern conceptions of just war and international law. Many critics of the strategy fear that any legitimization of preventive war would endanger international stability. But an examination of the relevant ethical issues from the perspective of just war doctrine reveals contradictions within a blanket prohibition of preventive war. Preventive "strategic interventions" against illiberal regimes -- states that correlate with the threats of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction -- parallel humanitarian interventions in that they have an ethical basis in the relationship between human rights and the right of state sovereignty. A widely accepted minimum standard of human rights, incorporated into new international institutions and/or an explicit revision of the definition of just war, could serve as an ethical boundary for both preventive wars and humanitarian interventions. The formal qualification of prevention and its merger with humanitarian goals could bring enhanced international legitimacy and support to preventive actions by the United States and its allies. (51 refs.)

This book provides a stimulating discussion of, and introduction to, just war theory.

The book examines the complex and contested moral and legal issues of preventive warfare.

The world today is overwhelmed by wars between nations and within nations, wars that have dominated American politics for quite some time. Point of Attack calls for a new understanding of the grounds for war. In this book John Yoo argues that the new threats to international security come not from war between the great powers, but from the internal collapse of states, terrorist groups, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and destabilizing regional powers. In Point of Attack he rejects the widely-accepted framework built on the U.N. Charter and replaces it with a new system consisting of defensive, pre-emptive, or preventive measures to encourage wars that advance global welfare. Yoo concludes with an analysis of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, failed states, and the current challenges posed by Libya, Syria, North Korea, and Iran.

The war of June 1967 between Israel and Arab states was widely perceived as being forced on Israel to prevent the annihilation of its people by Arab armies hovering on its borders. Documents now declassified by key governments question this view. The UK, USSR, France and the USA all knew that the Arab states were not in attack mode and tried to dissuade Israel from attacking. In later years, this war was held up as a precedent allowing an attack on a state that is expected to attack. It has even been used to justify a pre-emptive assault on a state expected to attack well in the future. Given the lack of evidence that it was waged by Israel in anticipation of an attack by Arab states, the 1967 war can no longer serve as such a precedent. This book seeks to provide a corrective on the June 1967 war.

Countries emerging from armed conflict or authoritarian rule face difficult questions about what to do with public employees who perpetrated past human rights abuses and the institutional structures that allowed such abuses to happen. Justice as Prevention: Vetting Public Employees in Transitional Societies examines the transitional reform known as "vetting"-the process by which abusive or corrupt employees are excluded from public office. More than a means of punishing individuals, vetting represents an important transitional justice measure aimed at reforming institutions and preventing the recurrence of abuses. The book is the culmination of a multiyear project headed by the International Center for Transitional Justice that included human rights lawyers, experts on police and judicial reform, and scholars of transitional justice and reconciliation. It features case studies of Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, El Salvador, the former German Democratic Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland, and South Africa, as well as chapters on due process, information management, and intersections between other institutional reforms.

In an age of new threats to international security, the old rules of war are rapidly being discarded. The great powers are moving toward norms less restrictive of intervention, preemption, and preventive war. This evolution is taking place not only in the United States but also in many of the world's most powerful nations, including Russia, France, and Japan, among others. As centuries of tradition and law are overturned, will preventive warfare push the world into chaos? Eve of Destruction is a provocative contribution to a growing international debate over the acceptance of preventive military action. In the first work to identify the trends that have led to a coming age of preventive war, Thomas M. Nichols uses historical analysis as well as interviews with military officials from around the world to trace the anticipatory use of force from the early 1990s—when the international community responded to a string of humanitarian crises in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo—to today's current and potential actions against rogue states and terrorists. He makes a case for a bold reform of U.S. foreign policy, and of the United Nations Security Council itself, in order to avert outright anarchy.

The major peacekeeping and stability operations of the last ten years have mostly taken place in countries that have pervasive customary justice systems, which pose significant challenges and opportunities for efforts to reestablish the rule of law. These systems are the primary, if not sole, means of dispute resolution for the majority of the population, but post-conflict practitioners and policymakers often focus primarily on constructing formal justice institutions in the Western image, as opposed to engaging existing traditional mechanisms. This book offers insight into how the rule of law community might make the leap beyond rhetorical recognition of customary justice toward a practical approach that incorporates the realities of its role in justice strategies."Customary Justice and the Rule of Law in War-Torn Societies" presents seven in-depth case studies that take a broad interdisciplinary approach to the study of the justice system. Moving beyond the narrow lens of legal analysis, the cases Mozambique, Guatemala, East Timor, Afghanistan, Liberia, Iraq, Sudan examine the larger historical, political, and social factors that shape the character and role of customary justice systems and their place in the overall justice sector. Written by resident experts, the case studies provide advice to rule of law practitioners on how to engage with customary law and suggest concrete ways policymakers can bridge the divide between formal and customary systems in both the short and long terms. Instead of focusing exclusively on ideal legal forms of regulation and integration, this study suggests a holistic and flexible palette of reform options that offers realistic improvements in light of social realities and capacity limitations. The volume highlights how customary justice systems contribute to, or detract from, stability in the immediate post-conflict period and offers an analytical framework for assessing customary justice systems that can be applied in any country. "

'Point of Attack' argues that the time has come to replace the international rules of war. Current law permits nations to resort to force only in self-defence or under UN authority, which perversely allows mass civilian killings, civil wars, weapons proliferation, and terrorism to run rampant. A new approach should allow the great powers to intervene when a war would benefit global welfare more than the costs.

The Encyclopedia is an international, interdisciplinary, and collaborative project, spanning all the relevant areas of scholarship related to issues of global justice, and edited and advised by leading scholars from around the world. The wide-ranging entries present the latest ideas on this complex subject by authors who are at the cutting edge of inquiry.