Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- PART A PACIFISM AND JUST WARS
- 1 Introduction: Between the Horrors and Necessity of War
- 2 Grotius and Contingent Pacifism
- 3 International Solidarity and the Duty to Aid
- PART B RETHINKING THE NORMATIVE AD BELLUM PRINCIPLES
- PART C THE PRECEDENT OF NUREMBERG
- PART D CONCEPTUALIZING THE CRIME OF AGGRESSION
- PART E HARD CASES AND CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Grotius and Contingent Pacifism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- PART A PACIFISM AND JUST WARS
- 1 Introduction: Between the Horrors and Necessity of War
- 2 Grotius and Contingent Pacifism
- 3 International Solidarity and the Duty to Aid
- PART B RETHINKING THE NORMATIVE AD BELLUM PRINCIPLES
- PART C THE PRECEDENT OF NUREMBERG
- PART D CONCEPTUALIZING THE CRIME OF AGGRESSION
- PART E HARD CASES AND CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In general, there breathes from the pages of De Jure Belli ac Pacis, a disapproval amounting to hatred, of war.
Hersch LauterpachtDe Jure Belli ac Pacis reminded his audience that he was still an enthusiast for war around the globe.
Richard TuckGrotius's great work, De Jure Belli ac Pacis, an 864-page work published in 1625, is still considered to be the single most important work in international legal theory. Grotius is the great modern defender of the Just War tradition, but he is also a kind of pacifist. This is an uneasy alliance within the same thinker. But such is the history of the Just War tradition, whose adherents maintained the same dual ideas: that war was evil, but that it could be, indeed must be, justifiable in certain cases. In this chapter I will attempt to explain how Grotius reconciled the various elements of his political and moral philosophy. And then, by building on Grotius's ideas I hope to provide the beginning of an account of a doctrine I will call “contingent pacifism.” Contingent pacifism is opposed to war not on absolute grounds but on contingent grounds, namely, that war as we have known it has not been, and seemingly cannot be, waged in a way that is morally acceptable. As we will see, jus ad bellum, the morality of initiating war, is thus dependent on jus in bello, the morality of waging war.
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- Information
- Aggression and Crimes Against Peace , pp. 25 - 45Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008