CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

A repeated theme throughout the historical development of just war, both in the
religious formulation of Aquinas and the legal codification of Grotius, is that the right to
resort to armed force rests on the absence of a higher authority to which disputes can be
referred for resolution. In this can be seen the basis for a belief that war could be
eradicated should an enforceable system of international law be emplaced. The
‘natural’ law that governs the relations between states can be seen to include the
provisions of just war doctrine but Vattel argues that it must be supported by a
‘voluntary’ law – essentially a codification of its principles in practice – to provide the
objective standards against which states agree to be judged.
Thus, in theory, with the development of international law to its apogee with the all but
universal accession of states to the UN Charter regime, just war, as an element of
natural law, has done its job and been rendered redundant. However, the UN Charter,
by privileging order above all other values, incorporated in its foundation the seeds for
of later discontent and challenge.
5.3 Conclusion 3: The Legal Paradigm for Use of Force has Been Found Wanting
The legal paradigm for use of force reached its apogee with the establishment of the UN
Charter, which seeks for the first time to reserve authority for use of force (except in the
most restricted circumstances) to a supra-national body. However, the model was
flawed from the outset because of the veto. Although it is clear that without the veto
there could have been no UN, nevertheless it has since its inception been used by the P5
in ways unintended by the founders.
Practical limitations have further undermined the effectiveness of the paradigm. The
failure of states to realise the intended enforcement mechanisms left the UN impotent
and the domestic law analogy unfulfilled. States’ behaviour has indicated a lack of faith
in the institutions established for peaceful dispute resolution and a tendency to abide by
the norm of non-intervention only so long as it suits them.
321