Questions regarding responsibilities in war are deeply related to moral discussions. Just war theory is a theory developed in order to categorize in which ways a war can be performed to be as just as possible. The theory was primarily divided into two dimensions: jus ad bellum and jus in bello which focuses on the reasons for going to war and the execution of the war. In recent years a third component to the theory has been discussed which incorporates the responsibilities after a war has been terminated, also known as jus post bellum. In this essay, just war theory is applicable to NATO:s invasion, Operation Unified Protector (OUP), of Libya during the civil war in 2011. In order to do so, a qualitative study has been chosen as methodology based on primary and secondary sources. By analyzing NATO:s actions from a just war perspective, the results present that the invasion was just based on jus ad bellum and jus in bello. The jus post bellum dimension did, in this case study, weaken OUP from a just war perspective as very few post war measures were implemented and sustainable peace did not arise after the operation ended.

La théorie de la guerre juste a fournit les principes qui forment la base de nos intuitions concernant l’éthique de la guerre pendant plus de milles ans. Cependant, la nature de la guerre a changé drastiquement dans les derniers 50 ans. Avec les avancés technologiques, tous les aspects de la guerre, du champ de bataille aux armes utilisées, sont aujourd’hui très différents. Ce qui est proposé dans ce texte est que les principes de jus in bello sont malgré tout encore adéquats pour les guerres contemporaines. Spécifiquement, en utilisant une analyse historique, ce texte argumentera contre la condition de l’urgence suprême de Michael Walzer pour proposer une approche qui laisse les principes de bases du jus in bello intactes. Ce texte suggère que les théoriciens de la guerre juste se penchent sur la question des armes prohibées pour avoir un impacte positif dans le domaine de l’éthique de la guerre. / Just war theory has been provided the basis for thinking about the morality of war for the past thousand years of Western history. However, the nature of warfare has dramatically altered in the last 50 years alone. With the advent of new technologies all aspects of warfare from the nature of the battlefield to the types of weapons used have changed. What this paper will argue, through a historical analysis of these technological changes, is that the principles guiding actions taken in war, the principles of jus in bello, are well equipped to deal with these changes. More specifically, this paper will argue against Michael Walzer’s famous supreme emergency condition and suggests instead that just war theorists should instead be concerned with weapons prohibitions, not in undermining the established principles of jus in bello, in order to have a favourable impact on contemporary warfare.

La théorie de la guerre juste a fournit les principes qui forment la base de nos intuitions concernant l’éthique de la guerre pendant plus de milles ans. Cependant, la nature de la guerre a changé drastiquement dans les derniers 50 ans. Avec les avancés technologiques, tous les aspects de la guerre, du champ de bataille aux armes utilisées, sont aujourd’hui très différents. Ce qui est proposé dans ce texte est que les principes de jus in bello sont malgré tout encore adéquats pour les guerres contemporaines. Spécifiquement, en utilisant une analyse historique, ce texte argumentera contre la condition de l’urgence suprême de Michael Walzer pour proposer une approche qui laisse les principes de bases du jus in bello intactes. Ce texte suggère que les théoriciens de la guerre juste se penchent sur la question des armes prohibées pour avoir un impacte positif dans le domaine de l’éthique de la guerre. / Just war theory has been provided the basis for thinking about the morality of war for the past thousand years of Western history. However, the nature of warfare has dramatically altered in the last 50 years alone. With the advent of new technologies all aspects of warfare from the nature of the battlefield to the types of weapons used have changed. What this paper will argue, through a historical analysis of these technological changes, is that the principles guiding actions taken in war, the principles of jus in bello, are well equipped to deal with these changes. More specifically, this paper will argue against Michael Walzer’s famous supreme emergency condition and suggests instead that just war theorists should instead be concerned with weapons prohibitions, not in undermining the established principles of jus in bello, in order to have a favourable impact on contemporary warfare.

The jus in bello proportionality rule establishes an upper boundary on how much collateral damage combatants can cause whilst striking a lawful target and its associated rule on precautions in attack compels them to take all feasible measures to properly understand the situation on the ground and to mitigate civilian harm. Proportionality and precautions in attack have been codified in API for over forty years, but in that time, it has been difficult to hold troops and their leaders accountable for breaches of these rules. In this study, I examine several reasons for why these rules have been difficult to apply ex post by considering the strategic motivations of state officials and prosecutors. Specifically, I propose a game-theoretic model which describes the decisions that state officials and prosecutors have historically made, and I explore what changes to this model would prompt these actors to behave differently. The model was developed using insights gained from legal case studies, archival research and a series of interviews with relevant actors. It suggests, inter alia, that to induce state officials to support a stricter liability standard for unlawful attacks, they must either ascribe much more value to legitimacy than to the success of future military operations, or they must perceive the success of future military operations to be unaffected by the possibility of losing criminal or civil adjudication. State officials may perceive losing a civil case based on state liability as being less likely to affect the success of future military operations compared with criminal liability against individual troops. Therefore, state officials may be inclined to support a stricter civil liability standard, if they believed it would help the state to secure greater legitimacy.

In this paper, I will present a Kantian revision of the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE). In order to do so, I will explain the concept of jus in bello – focusing in particular on the distinction between intent and foresight. I will then argue that we ought to take an agency-inspired look at the DDE. Finally, I will conclude by arguing for my thesis that Boyle’s theory of agency, while good, needs to be revised in order to accommodate concerns stemming from Kant’s Formula of Humanity… namely consent.

The trend towards the automation and robotization of warfare, enabling the exercise of violence from a distance, has been long-present, dating back to such inventions as the bow and arrow that allowed an archer to kill from afar. Today’s military drones now permit an extreme separation between rivals. James Der Derian’s concept of virtuous war encapsulates a certain normative view of current and future wars. A rationale of the actors waging virtuous war is that violence is used in a cleaner way, resulting in ever fewer battle deaths. In this thesis, I argue that the next step in the progression of military weaponry is the inclusion of artificial superintelligence (hereinafter ASI) in the American drone and counterterrorism program. While including this technology into the American war machine may represent a moral objective, I conclude that the use of ASI for military purposes is immoral because accountability becomes indeterminable.

Trots lagar, nationella som internationella, återkommer diskussionen om etik vid militära interventioner. Uppsatsen handlar om huruvida NATO:s intervention i Kosovo levde upp till etiska lagar kring militära interventioner samt om normativa teorier fortfarande är relevanta och lämnas utrymme idag.Syftet med uppsatsen är att se om det fortfarande finns utrymme idag för normativa teorier, såsom den etiska teorin just war theory, och om dessa är rimliga att använda. Uppsatsen använder fallstudien Kosovo som exempel och analyserar samtidigt hur denna intervention lever upp till de nio punkterna i teorin.Kvalitativ textanalys samt fallstudie av Kosovo har använts som metoder och just war theory har använts som teori.Resultatet visar att sju av nio punkter helt eller till stor del levdes upp till under NATO:s intervention i Kosovo, och att de resterande två till viss del levdes upp till. Undersökningen påvisar också att normativa teorier lämnas utrymme idag, och att teorin fortfarande kan vara relevant, om än med lite modifikation.

The permissible use of defensive force is a central tenet of the traditional legal and philosophical justification for war and its practice. Just War Theory holds a nation’s right to resist aggressive attack with defensive force as the clearest example of a just cause for war. Just War Theory also stipulates norms for warfare derived from a conception of defensive force asserted to be consistent with the moral reality of war. Recently, these aspects of Just War Theory have been criticized. David Rodin has challenged the status of national defense as an uncontroversial just cause. Jeff McMahan has charged that Just War Theory’s norms that govern warfare are inconsistent with the norms of permissive defensive force. In this thesis I defend the status of national defense as a clear case of a just cause. However, my defense may require revision of Just War Theory’s norms that govern warfare.

This dissertation offers a new understanding about wartime decision making in the face of likely, but unintended, harm to foreign civilians. It empirically identifies conditions under which leaders in democratic nations are more or less likely to choose to attack a target when confronted with a dilemma between pursuing national security objectives and avoiding civilian casualties. An innovative targeting decision model was constructed that described both the theorized structure of the decisions inputs and the process by which these inputs are assembled into a choice. The model went beyond the normal target benefit and civilian casualty cost considerations of proportionality to also include the contextual input of prospect frame. Decision makers were expected to address the same benefit and cost differently depending on whether they were winning or losing the conflict. This was because the prospect frame would influence their risk attitudes, as predicted by prospect theory. This model was then tested via two decision-making experiments that used military officers and defense civilians as participants. Additionally, a statistical analysis of data collected from an extended period of the second Intifada was done to seek evidence that the model also applied in actual wartime decision making. All three tests supported portions of the targeting decision model. Higher target benefit and lower civilian casualty estimates increased support for the planned attack. Prospect frame influenced decisions in the cases where both target value and the civilian casualty estimates were high and the resulting dilemma was very difficult. In these situations, those told that their forces were losing the conflict were less sensitive to humanitarian harm and more likely to support the attack than when they were told their side was winning. Furthermore, the Intifada data analysis of attacks approved by Israeli officials against Palestinians found this same effect of prospect frame held generally across all six years of observations.

This essay seeks to evaluate whether or not  the war in Crimea, conducted by the Russian Federation, is to be considered “just”. This is done in accordance with the theory of Just war, which demands that there be two separate evaluations of the war. Firstly the reasons and actions that lead up to the war must be evaluated if they fulfill the demands set up by the theory, this is called “Jud ad bellum”. Next, the conduct once in the war must be evaluated if it fulfills the demands set up in the theory, this is called “jus in bello”. The Russian occupation of Crimea was not following a declaration of war, was against several international agreements and the war was not a last resort after attempts of diplomatic solutions  all of these actions violate key demands of jus ad bellum. Going through reports by various human rights organizations on the matter, the demands set up by “jus in bello” are determined to not be satisfied, mostly due to the Russian use of torture on prisoners to subtract incriminating information for use in court against prisoners of war.