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CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

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5.6 Conclusion 6: Just War Offers a Framework for Debate that Helps Guide<br />

Our Decisions on Intervention<br />

If the legal paradigm has been found wanting in a geo-strategic environment that<br />

promotes interventionism, and yet we are to avoid unfettered military interventions,<br />

then we need a new guide to frame our decision making. The just war tenets of jus ad<br />

bellum provide a sound framework for debate, albeit with some adaptation of<br />

understanding. The subjective nature of just cause and the tendency for any aggressor<br />

to claim it require a greater focus on the other criteria. In particular, right intent is<br />

easier objectively to verify. Whilst proper authority, in the sense of an effective supra-<br />

national body has proved impractical in a legal sense, when interpreted as broad-based,<br />

cross-cultural international support, then it continues to play a critical role in justifying<br />

military intervention.<br />

5.7 Conclusion 7: The Character of Contemporary Conflict May Change Our<br />

Perception of Imminence (in Time and/or Space) in Justifying Pre-Emption but<br />

Offers no Justification for Preventive War<br />

A right to anticipatory action today, as ever, increases insecurity and gives rise to a<br />

vicious circle of claims to necessary pre-emption. Just war tenets of last resort and<br />

proportionality of response rightly circumscribe anticipatory war – denying preventive<br />

war and constraining pre-emption. Neither terrorism nor WMD, as aspects of<br />

contemporary security threats, change the case. They may impact our understanding of<br />

immediacy – an attack can be further off in time and space when it meets Webster’s<br />

criterion of imminence – but they make no case for preventive action. A significant<br />

concern today must be that reasonable arguments for pre-emption are being used to<br />

justify preventive war, falling substantially short of last resort.<br />

Nations will always take their own counsel, regardless of international legal opinion,<br />

when it comes to promoting their own security. This may lead to the taking of<br />

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