Ethics,Sovereignty,and Self-Defense

1 James Gow, `A Revolution in International Affairs?', Security Dialogue, vol. 31, no. 3, September 2000, pp. 293-306. Further page references to this article are given in parentheses after each quote.

2 By proto-realist I mean that the argument belongs to the mainstream of 20thcentury realism as described, for instance, by Mark Amstutz in his fine summary in International Ethics (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), pp. 50-58. Amstutz identifies the primacy of self-interest, the pervasive interest in securing power, and the conception of the international community as a `self-help' system as three of the most central characteristics of realism.

3 This is my paraphrase and interpretation of Gow's argument.

4 See Barbara Crossette, `Canada Tries to Define Line Between Human and National Rights', New York Times, 14 September 2000, for quotes from both Annan and Axworthy.

5 For a useful summary of the traditional 20th-century international-law view of the rights of self-defense - i.e. the view that Gow now considers it necessary to expand - see Antonio Cassese, International Law in a Divided World (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986), pp. 136-142.

6 For cogent summaries of the Just War tradition and its principles, see Richard Miller, Interpretations of Conflict (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991); and Richard J. Regan, Just War (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996). For thorough historical introductions to the tradition, see James Turner Johnson, Ideology, Reason, and the Limitation of War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975) and Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981).

7 In St. Thomas Aquinas's classic and influential formulation of Just War principles in Summa Theologiae, II-II, qu. 40, art. 1, `legitimate authority' is listed as the first criterion. As self-defense has emerged as the most central of the Just War criteria in the course of the 20th century, parallel with a weakening of the idea that force can or should be used for other purposes than self-defense - for instance, to fight for justice outside one's own territory or to punish evildoers, both of these just causes according to the Just War framework of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas - the emphasis on legitimate authority has naturally waned, since no authority seems to be needed for mere selfdefense (see James Turner Johnson, Morality and Contemporary Warfare [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999], pp. 27-32). However, if it is true that the concept of self-defense is to be expanded, renewed attention to legitimate authority is called for.

8 Other important criteria are last resort, reasonable hope of success, discrimination, and proportionality.

9 Gregory Reichberg & Henrik Syse, `Protecting the Natural Environment in Wartime: Ethical Considerations from the Just War Tradition', Journal of Peace Research, vol. 37, no. 4, July 2000, pp. 449-468, on p. 461.

10 Ibid., p. 459.