CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

Of course, this conceptualization of just cause, opens wide debate as to the nature of
justice, as Holliday himself recognises: ‘Given the enormous amount of Western debate
prompted by Rawls’ publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971, and the jihad versus
McWorld ideological contests that have developed across the globe more recently, it is
only to be expected that a wide range of perspectives will be confronted at this point.’ 134
We need not be too alarmed that Holliday’s formulation would open the way for too
many interventions because the other conditions – last resort and proportionality, in
particular – provide the stay. Nevertheless, we might choose to further constrain the
just cause by incorporating into Holliday the restriction discussed earlier to cases of
injustice that ‘shock the conscience of mankind’. We are then presented with a
formulation of just cause for humanitarian intervention thus: There exists an intractable
injustice so grievous as to shock the conscience of mankind and this can only be halted
by the use of military force; the proposed intervention has the authority of a legitimate
body and the intentions of the intervening powers are (demonstrably) right; there is a
reasonable chance of success and the use of military action (and its intended scale) is
proportionate to the injustice to be addressed. Before we can accept this, we must give
further consideration to the right intent, reasonable chance of success and legitimate
authority conditions.
Before leaving this discussion of just cause, it is worth noting that in the contemporary
security environment, in which security clearly involves much more than territorial
defence, there may well be self defence justifications for intervention. The issue of
whether such interventions can be pre-emptive/preventive is discussed below and the
possible need for interventionist action in combating terrorism and wider asymmetric
warfare will be discussed in the next chapter.
3.3.4.2 Right Intent and Reasonable Chance of Success in Humanitarian
Intervention
Holliday’s reformulation of just cause goes some way to removing the subjectivity of
the judgement that has always been a difficulty for discussion of jus ad bellum – by
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