Distributing the Harm of Just Wars: In Defence of an Egalitarian Baseline Approach (War, Conflict and Ethics)

Synopsis

This book argues that the risk of harm in armed conflict should be divided equally between combatants and enemy non-combatants. International law requires that combatants in war take ‘all feasible precautions’ to minimize damage to civilian objects, injury to civilians, and incidental loss of civilian life. However, there is no clear explanation of what ‘feasible precautions’ means in this context, or what would count as sufficiently minimised incidental harm. As a result, it is difficult to judge whether a particular war or offensive actually satisfies this requirement. Just war theorists often consider it common sense that merely not intending to harm innocent civilians is not sufficient, but there is little clarity in the literature regarding what this means. One crucial question that is almost always overlooked is that of what the appropriate baseline distribution of risk should be. This book defends the Minimal Harm Requirement (MHR), which states that combatants should make an effort to reduce merely foreseen harm to enemy non-combatants to the lowest reasonable level. In order to assess which risk impositions are reasonable, and which are not, an egalitarian baseline should be adopted, suggesting that other things being equal risk of harm should be distributed equally between just combatants and unjust non-combatants. This book will be of much interest to students of just war theory, ethics, security studies and international relations.

Copyright:

2021

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

196 Pages

ISBN-13:

9781000364569

Related ISBNs:

9781003004479, 9780367435806, 9780367740856

Publisher:

Taylor and Francis

Date of Addition:

03/11/21

Copyrighted By:

Sara Van Goozen, The right of Sara Van Goozen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Military, Nonfiction, Law, Legal Issues and Ethics, Philosophy, Politics and Government

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.