CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

enter voluntarily. Until such a condition is attained, some level of conflict is inevitable.
The liberal agenda seeks to overcome this natural state. Conduct of such wars, then,
must be such as to avoid destruction of the basis of trust upon which peace must
eventually be re-established. Liberalism is distinctively normative and therefore
amenable to moral guidance on the use of force.
Although a broad church, liberalism per se is not opposed to the use of force; indeed
certain strands within it may prove more prone to using force than are realists. At one
end of its spectrum it encompasses or at least tends towards pacifism, which would
condemn just war for seeking to vindicate the unacceptable. At the other end, however,
it displays a tendency to moral-crusading in its interventionism. Here just war might
offer the very framework for debate that is required to avoid hubris and unrestrained use
of force to impose values assumed to be universal.
International Society shares the liberal view that the interaction of states is primarily a
human business; as such it falls within the realm of ethics. The interaction of states
necessarily leads to the development of a ‘society’ with norms and conventions, if not
necessarily formal rules. International Societists share with realists a view that war is
inevitable but reject the realists assertion that it is beyond moral regulation.
Just war has a natural appeal to International Society, which accepts the inevitability of
war but seeks to minimise both its incidence and effect. The society of states depends
for its existence on a minimum set of shared principles to which members feel able to
subscribe; these must have broad appeal. The occasion on which armed force may
legitimately be used, and the ways in which it may be used, are surely significant
enough to be strong contenders for inclusion in this rule-set.
5.2 Conclusion 2: The Establishment of a Legal Paradigm for Use of Force
Effectively Rendered Just War Doctrine Obsolete
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