PART I - War as law enforcement (to 1600)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2009
Summary
[J]ust as within a state some lawful power to punish crimes is necessary to the preservation of domestic peace; so in the world as a whole, there must exist, in order that the various states may dwell in concord, some power for the punishment of injuries inflicted by one state upon another; and this power is not to be found in any superior, for we assume that these states have no commonly acknowledged superior; therefore, the power in question must reside in the sovereign prince of the injured state …; and consequently, war … has been instituted in place of a tribunal administering just punishment.
Francisco SuárezThe earliest instances of collective armed struggle predate recorded history and so remain the subject of speculation rather than of settled fact. Indeed, if the Christian story of the battle in heaven between the good and wicked angels be given credence, then war may be regarded as prehistoric in origin in the most thoroughgoing sense possible. Our concern, happily, is the more modest one – though difficult enough – of finding the origin not of war as such, but rather of the formation of coherent legal ideas about war. Here too, however, speculation occupies higher ground than established fact.
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- War and the Law of NationsA General History, pp. 7 - 12Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005